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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ' 



Slielf,_.,,3.3 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



/ 



POEMS 

AND 



SKETCHES OF REAL LIFE 



ON THE 



LLANO ESTACADO. 



BY 



ALONZO H. PERRY. 




0^ 



T3 



EDtcrcfl according; to act of Coniiress, in the year 1880, by 

A H. PEERY. 

In the office of the Librarian of (.'ousii'OJi*, at Wasliingtoti. 



AUTHOR^S PREFACE. 



The following Poems and Sketches are oftered 
to the public with no apology. They were written 
for my friends, who would take none; to others I 
owe none. They were written during the few 
weeks of an indisposition that incapacitated me for 
the active duties of life, and under circumstances 
peculiarly unfriendly to composition. But if the 
perusal of this little volume shall afford any grati- 
fication to the indulgent reader who can kindly 
overlook its faults, I shall be amply repaid. The 
style is my own. I have witnessed most of the 
scenes I have attempted to describe, and have given 
my own impressions in my own way. 

The Author. 

Hunter's Valley, Texas, March 19, 1880. 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 



Alonzo H. Perry was born in Lafayette, Walker 
County, Georgia. Oct. 13, 1837, and drew his blood 
from some of Georgia's best sti'ains, and though 
death deprived him of a father's guiding counsel in 
infancy, yet he had the unblemished characters of a 
long line of worthy ancestors to emulate, while a 
proud mother pointed the path of virtue and coun- 
seled him to set his mark high. He began active 
life when quite young, as teacher in eastern Texas, 
a^il for eight or nine years he labored faithfully 
and efficiently in the cause of education, winning 
golden opinions from his patrons and the life-long 
esteem of his pupils. Then nearly as much of his 
life was devote:! to surveying for the United States 
Government the wild lands north of the 37th paral- 
lel and west of the Neosho river, and there, under 
the burning suns of summer and amidst the jbiting 
snows of winter, he won a high reputation as an 
exact and scientific surveyor . His health becoming 
impaired, he returned to Texas, the land of his 



PREFACE. V 

adoption, but soon liis love of adventure and un- 
tamed, restless siDirit led him for t\\o years to cast 
his lot on the Staked Plains, where, with all the 
wild daring and crafty shrewdness of the taciturn 
red man, he added the scientific gkill with the bear- 
ing and cultivated intelligence of a gentleman. 
Here was realized those scenes in his life he so 
vividly describes. 

As a writer, Mr. Perry has the happy faculty of 
painting in freshest colors before his readers the 
beauties of his own vivid imagery, with a flow of 
language that charms wtile it instructs. AYith a 
sway of his pen he leads the mind to the most ex- 
alted thoughts, and plays with them as with things 
familiar, while the commonplace things of life he 
describes with all the ease, grace and facility of a 
Dickens. Almost without an effort he indites a 
poem that loses none of its lustre by comparison 
with some of the happiest flights of a Byron or a 
Moore; and whether writing prose or verse, he 
throws unconsciously the glamour of his own bril- 
liant intellect over the scene and entrances the 
reader with its beauties. A bold and original 
thinker, he gives us his originalities in a kindly 
spirit and leads us through the wildest scenes with 
a kind, reliant hand. He touches every chord of 
the heart like the master musician the keys of his 



VI PREFACE. 

instrument, and we predict that he will, as he 
should, rank high in fame as a writer, and appro- 
priately be termed the Byron of America. He has 
won distinction in all his undertakings, and the 
stalwart hunter of the western wilds honored him 
alike for his bravery, goodness of heart, prowess 
and skill. The Publisher. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Dying for AVater 9 

The Desert Trail 14 

The Hunter's Defense. 43 

Colorado Jack 68 

My Old Mountain Home 82 

The Hunter 85 

The Fog 88 

There's a Desolate Spot 93 

Madam Mollie McGuire 99 

To My Wife 101 

To My Infant Daughter 103 

From Fort Griffin to Silver Lake 106 



Dying for Wate[|. 



The Comanche had gathered his dusky forces, 
and from the high cayeriis of the ''YelloAv Houses" 
that lay beneath the battlements of his fathers 
might now be heard the wild, weird notes of his 
war-song. He had converted the antres of the 
cougar and desert lion into the most impregnable 
fortress : for across the mouths of some half dozen 
of these, that yawned along the top of the bluff 
overlooking the valley of Yellow House lake he had 
built walls of stone. He had rode here for reasons 
known to himself from his hiding places in the arid 
sand hills, where naught but the wolf, the antelope 
and the Indian can live. He lay here and rested 
his ponies and matured his plans in security, seventy 
leagues from the roar of Griffin's heaviest guns and 
far beyond the reach of her swiftest cavalry. 

But while these grim, staunch, steel-nerved war- 
riors of the desert were lying there in apparent 
indolence, drinking the pure waters of the spring- 
below them, watching the Mexican trail and hus- 
banding their ^dtality against the terrible strain to 
come, they were eliminating a plan with • 'deeper 
skill in war's black art" than learned military tacti- 



lo Dying for '\Vater. 

cians possess. And when the moon grew broad 
enough and bright enough they mounted their 
ponies and rode across the forty miles of level 
that lay between the Yellow Houses and Head 
Waters. Then they swept down the canon-like 
valley of the Double Mountain Fork and on to the 
settlements around Griffin, and when settlers and 
hunters and soldiers slept they glided swiftly and 
noiselessly from point to point in the haze of the 
moonlight and selected the fleetest and best horses. 

Silently, skillfully and quickly the work was 
done, and long before morning's silver began to 
rime the east they were riding far out and s^^dftly 
tow^ard the illimitable plains. Then the sentinel 
rubbed his stiffened eyelids and peered through 
the gray morning's uncertain light for horses that 
were not to be seen. 

Quickly spread the alarm, and amidst the ex- 
citement, the hasty breakfast, the running hither 
and thither, a company of soldiers and hunters got 
ready for the pursuit : and accompanied by a few 
Lipans and Tonkawas for guides, there set out one 
of the most ill-fated parties that ever followed the 
crafty red man. 

With wonderful tact or intuition the keen Tonk- 
awa follows the dim trail where the flying hoi'se 



PyING for y/ATER. 11 

has left no mark on the rocks or encrusted turf that 
a white man would see. And straight toward the 
2)arched and desolate sand hills, avoiding every 
lake or spring of water, led the ominous trail. 

Soon the little remaining water in the canteens 
beg?=n to be more carefully husbanded; but they 
felt that the pursued party must have water as well 
as themselves, and hopefully they followed on. 

But the strange, dusk Indian was carrying out 
with most consummate skill a plan not dreamed of 
by the brave and fair-minded soldier or the shrewd 
and tireless hunter. For where his trail reached a 
point opposite the unseen spring or pool he halted 
his horses and the moccasined feet of the warriors 
that brought water for man and beast left no trace 
on the matted mesquit. This was repeated as occa- 
sion required while the thirsty soldiers and hunters 
pressed on after these untiring riders, imconscious 
of the many life-giving pools they passed so near ; 
and when far l3eyond Double Lake (which they had 
so strangely missed) the shrewd thieves of the 
desert had separated and struck out singly across 
the barren solitude. 

No water yet! The chase was done. With 
parched and swollen tongues and chzzy and reeling 
brain — almost frantic with thirst — they halted. 



12 Dying for Water. 

Coniuiaiid was no more, for the dry and swollen 
tongue of their plucky officer could not syllable a 
sound. The soldiers struck out east and south, and 
the hunters under that wonderful Mexican guide 
went in search of the Yellow Houses. 

A midsummer burning sun scorched with mer- 
ciless rays the dry desert turf, and the hot winds 
of the Llanos was drinking the moisture of the 
body. Some of the soldiers wandered to a lake, 
and wallowing like swine in the black muck of the 
bottom, they slaked their thirst in its warm waters. 
But I have seen* one of two carbines that was 
picked up, long after, beside the whitened bones 
of two soldiers that gave their lives to the desert 
di'outh within half a mile of Negro Lake. 

The hunters followed faithfully their dark guide, 
who kept his way straight as flies the dove : for he 
had said in the Indian's short, sententious style : 
"Me iind Yellow House."' But they could no 
longer bear the tierce heat of the noonday sun, and 
they halted and made such awnings as they could 
of their saddle blankets. They killed a horse and 
drank his blood, and then an anteloj^e and sucked 
the fluids from his warm body. And when the 
brazen sun had sunk behind the low sand hills, and 
the cool night zephyrs began to fan the heated 



Dying for "^ater. 13 

desert, they mounted their reehng steeds and 
silently dropped in single file behind their guide. 
About two hours before daylight their guide 
reined his horse and said: ''Yellow House close. 
AVait here. Might miss in dark. Me find when 
sun shines."' And he did. For while the exliausted 
hunters were lying on the groimd, dreaming of 
limpid lakes or burning sands, he was bringing 
them canteens of water from the cool springs of 
the Yellow Houses, and they w^et the tongues that 
had been parched for eighty-six hours. I have 
since seen and talked with three of these hunters, 
whose sound lungs and toughened muscles enabled 
them to suryive this terrible strain on the powers 
of life, and had from their lips the facts that were 
graved in characters of fire on their hearts. 



The Desert Trail, 



And tlierc was mounting in hot haste the steed, 
The mustering ^iquadron and the clattering car. 

Bykox. 
[Inclined as I am to believe that "truth is stranger 
than tictiou," the following is nearly a literal text of the 
facts as I had them from some of the actual participants, 
and in rehearsing the ''o'er true tale" I have endeavored 
to rein the flights of the Muse within the limits of truth. 
I may add that the name of *' Bill " has often T)een 
adopted by outlaws of the frontier, and I have called the 
guide "Cornello," for the reasons that the name is both 
metrical and Mexican and the real name unknown.] 

I was a wanderer on the Range 

Where stretch the Llanos bleak and vast. 
And many a scene as weird and strano-e 

Before my vision there has passed 
As Arab tale, or Moorish song. 

Or Spain's traditions ever told. 
Of man}' a dark and dastard wrong 

By roaming outlaws free and bold. 
Nevada's eastern brow^ looks o'er 

A desert curst b}^ heaven. 
Where mongrel clans forever poui'. 

By fate or vengeance driven : 



Jhe pesERT Jra-il. 15 

And many a red. iTiiannaled crime 

Has nursed the Indian's hate 
Within that dreary desert's chme. 

Whose fiends forever wait. 
And here the dust of nation's dead 

Still thirsty drinks the gore. 
And here and there the grinning head 

Still tells the tale of yore. 
I've listened to the hollow dirge 

The wind sang through its ghastly jaw, 
And tried to catch the spirit words 

That moaned along the flaw. 
As conch shell snatched fron:i out the se:i 

Still breathes the ocean's roar. 
Tiiis told a startling tale to me 

Of death's ail blasting power. 
To me it was an echo deep 

That told of murder's blighting hand — - 
A deathless wail that would not sleej) 

By desert zepli3^rs ever fanned. 
I've stood vdthin the noisome cave, 

Oft the home of reveling rout. 
In turn has sheltered dusky brave 

Or hiding been of crafty scout. 
And on these walls the scalp and shield 

Have dangled side by side 



') The Desert Trail. 

With many a trophy of the Held 
That pleased his vaunting pride. 

I've Grazed aloncr the azure skv 

And seen hung o er the glittring earth 

The strange fantastic mirage lie, 
A phantom form of air}' birth. 

I've seen the tall and grassy mound 
Plain, resting in the sky 

Above the flat and solid ground. 
Before my wandering eye. 

I've listened to the thrilling tales 
Of hunter and of scout, 

AVhen rocky "bluffs and cedar vales 
Rang with the bloody rout. 
]Mathias told to me a tale. 
When lying deeply in the vale 
'Neath my robe pavillion by the stream 
That now^ was drank by summer's beam. 
Though di-y and glistening now the bed, 
'Neath canon's wall so deeply laid, 
The ui)heaved drifts along its course 
Proves here has been the torrent's force. 
And these high walls through many an age 
Have overhung the torrent's rage, 
Save jagged boulders here that lie, 
Tom by artillery of the sky, 



Jhe Pesert Jrail, 17 

From brow of that grey battlenient, 

Have tumbled here in long descent, 

AYitli thunder's force and torrents driven, 

When poured the rain in floods from heaven. 

There leaped along the turbid wave. 

From tangled gorge and mountain cave. 

And many a ribbon-like cascade 

Leaped through the rents the lightnings made, 

And :ang and hummed with many a whirl. 

With half its waters dashed to pearl. 

To meet below the mightier tide 

That rolled the boulder's weight aside. 

Yvliile lying there and thinking o'er 

The scenes that I had passed before, 

I saAv a jaguar, long and tall. 

Creep long the verge of canons wall ; 

And then he stopped, and listening stood, 

While plain against the moon I viewed 

His mighty breast and giant limb 

In sharp outline on rocky rim. 

But for a moment only stood 

This monarch of the desert brood ; 

He turned his lion head askance. 

And full on us his lightning glance 

From glaring eye all flashing fell. 

And tlien rang out his piercing yell, 



Jhe Pesert Jrail. 

Aiid while its echoes rang aromid 
He leaped beyond my vision's bound. 
And wall to wall replied again 
In tenor of that savage strain. 
As down the canon deeply walled 
The grating echoes slowly rolled. 
I felt the owlet's flappmg wing. 
I heard the wolf lap at the sirring. 
I heard the bison's hea\y tramp. 
The antelope's impatient stamp. 
And saw the slight and agile fox 
Leap lightly 'mong the jagged rocks; 
For when the day begins to wane 
They gather from the stretching plain. 
And trooping with its darkling shade 
They seek the deep spring m the glade. 
I lay and glanced along the past. 
And saw its fading visions vast 
One by one before me pass. 
Outlined upon that mental glass 
Kaleidoscope of the human breast. 
Alike the scenes that curst or blest 
My youth or manhood's fleeting way. 
Each in its dim and distant day. 
Reader ! be thine ever bright 
As cloudless day and starry night. 



The pESERT Jrail- 

^■y thickly did tlie memories creep 
Before my eye I could not sleep. 
And Im-ning to liim on my side : 
'•^Matliias. tell me of that ride." 
It shocked him mth electric thrill. 
But summoned soon his iron will 
He gazed aloft, and calmer now 
He ran his hand along his brow. 
As if to check the blighting blast 
Of burning memories crowding fast 
That shot athwart his quivering brain 
When glancing o'er that ride again. 
I gpczed upon his noble brow. 
And saw the passions come and go : 
It seemed within liis large black eye. 
As upturned there against the sky. 
That I could see impressed m pain 
The horrors of that ride again. 
And then he told in language trite 
The tale I have essayed to write. 
And as the vivid visions j^assed 
Before my eye he little guessed 
That I would pen in running verse 
The tale he told so brief and terse. 
I felt the glow. Heaven guard the hour 
When I shall feel the Muse's power ; 



20 JhE pESERT JrAIL. 

When she shall glance my pen along 
The livmg lines of epic song. 
Had I a pen from eagle's Aving — 
Could the charmed verse like Orpheus sing — 
I'd spurn the musty Orient's best 
And lay my scenes along the West. 
The West ! the West ! the glorious West I 
Where Nature s form is ever dressed 
In all the gay and gorgeous dyes 
That spring beneath her l)rilliant skies. 
But to his tale. 'Twas not so long- 
As now may seem my careless song ; 
I had it from the guileless tongue 
Of him whom everj" truth had wruDg. 
The Comanche called his bravest, best. 
From 'mong these dark marauders of the West, 
And 'round the Hmidred Wells the council sate 
And talked of vengeance and of hate. 
Beside the scant infilt'ring tide 
The yellow sand just serves to hide. 
In midst of dried and parching land 
Where scantest shrub shades not the sand, 
Nor swag nor swale nor greener grot 
Nor lingering dew drop marks the spot. 
Though scarce an arm's length there l:>elow 
The cool and crystal waters flow. 



The scalping knife or muscle shell 
Supplies his need to dig the well, 
And when his selfish want's supplied 
He turns the scanty vein to hide, 
Au.l ere resumed the ready rein 
The dr^dng sand has filled again. 
And skillful hid as cherished cache 
No foe will see its waters flash. 
And surely no tradition tells 
By whom was found the Hundred Wells: 
Whom Fate or Fortune strangely led 
To scoop just here the shallow bed. 
]Mav not a fing-er from on hio-h 
Sometimes direct the Indian's eye? 
Or heed his want ? or guard his fall ? 
The love that's large enough for all. 
The desert beasts have gathered there. 
Yet circling timidly afar 
They turn and gaze, then sidling trot 
Beyond the reach of carbine shot. 
They've sniifed the waters on the air. 
And wolf and cougar's left the lair. 
And desert lion and cayote 
Have stalked from fastness not remote. 
The antelope, with head on high, 
Watches there with wondermg eye. 



26 JhE pE«-ERT JrAIL 

And know that they who foUowed lii-st 

Woukl fainting die of burning thirst. 

And there, among these hills of sand. 

Select by lot the willing l>and. 

8aye he shall lead whose sunburnt brow 

(Though near as dusk as Indians now) 

Proclaims him of a gentler race ; 

Yet eyery lineament of that face — 

The scowling eye and lowring brow — 

Tiie heayy jaw and forehead low — 

Proclaim too well the soul within 

Brooks many a dark and damning sin : 

But such his spirit, well maintained. 

The Indian's trust and faith had gained: 

And able with their best to cope. 

To poise the lance or throw the rope. 

Or send the arrow far and trae. 

Or aught that Indian prides t(^ do :. 

Can long as any Indian ride 

Upon his flying courser's side. 

And hanging there will show a small 

And flying mark for foeman's ball : 

Or long as wolf can wait for food. 

Or eat it in its micooked blood. 

His bed has been for years the earth. 

AVitli robe or blanket for his berth. 



Jhe Pesert Jraic. 27 

He heeds not heaven's fiercest storm. 
Too well she knit to mar the form. 
Though to every crime and passion lent, 
It bears thus much, and still unbent. 
No music ever charms his ear : 
The yell of hate, or wail of fear. 
Accustomed sounds, have often smote 
Like wolf or cougar's lengthened note, 
Unheeded strike his callous ear. 
Unknown to love, and dead to fear. 
And such the spirit now that guides 
Where swift and demon-like he rides. 
Tiie dusky band that follows where 
His counsel points to do or dare. 
And fast along the Desert Trail. 
In midnights soft and cooling gale. 
In long and winding single tile. 
Like monstrous snake of southern isle, 
And silent all the shadowed clans 
Like eastern fables genii bands. 
Sent on some mission of the fates 
To weave with woe man's life estates. 
But when the morning sun shall rise, 
And redly glow the orient skies. 
He'll seek the shades of darkest glen. 
Secure from si slit of civil men : 



24 Jhi; pEstRT Jrail. 

Or leapt along the canon's edge, 

AVliere the deep abyss' crumbling ledge 

Cracked and rolled beneath his feet ; 

And yet he glibly flew ar: fleet 

As chamois Vvdid or mountain roe 

When seen the hunter's threatened blow : 

Has charged the sh?.ggy bison o'er 

Where his countless thousands thimdeiiug pour 

Adown the craggy, bee'ding steep. 

With manj^ a far and flying leap ; 

Has often, in such daring ride, 

Replucked the arrow from his side. 

Or, with the athlete's agile knack, 

Has leajDed upon his rolling back ! 

But none of all that dusky band 

Had keener eye or readier hand 

Than Bill, the Texas renegade, 

AVhose crimes of blood and theft had n^ade 

A terror to the wild frontier ; 

And many a wail and j^leading tear 

His crimes had wrung from caj^tive fair, 

In the heart's ^^Id tremor of despau', 

For murdered parent lightly slain 

By this red pirate of the plain, 

Or captive child taken afar 

To learn the ways of guile and war. 



No keener slave in hands of fate 

To sate the Indian's burning hate ; 

No t^.arker crimes more reckless di'iven 

Than he whom laws of man or. heaven 

Have outlawed. Curst by his kind, 

That stinging viper of the mind. 

Vengeance, brings to nerve the arm 

And sternly work the ways of harm. 

And he in that dark coimcil set. 

And never can my ear forget. 

A\1iile lying low in tallest grass 

I heaixl the fiendish council pass 

Too gladl}^ on the plan he laid — 

It sui:s so v>'ell the Indian's trade. 

Sententious came the assenting grunt, 

As eagei- for the desperate hiuit . 

The warriors crowd to shake the hand 

That strikes against its native land. 

The plan was this, so darkly laid. 

In sca'es of vengaance rightly weighed : 

That v>diile the broad'ning moon's pale light 

Still vanished half the shades of night. 

They'd Griffin's lieetest horses take 

.And near to desert spring or lake. 

But 0:1 1 o^' sight would lay the com-se. 

-\nd far would ride on lleete. t horse. 



26 yHE Desert y RAfL 

And kiiow that they who followed first 
Woiild fainting die of burning- thirst. 
And there, among these hills of sand- 
Select by lot the willing band. 
Save he shall lead whose sunburnt brow 
(Though near as dusk as Indian's now) 
Proclaims him of a gentler race ; 
Yet every- lineament of that face — 
The scowling eye and lowring brow — 
The heavy jaw and forehead low — 
Proclaim too well the soul within 
^ Brooks many a dark and danniiiig sin : 
But such his spirit, well maintained. 
The Indian's trust and faith had gained; 
And able with their l^est to cope. 
To poise the lance or throw the rope. 
Or send the arrow far and true. 
Or aught that Indian prides to do : 
Can long as any Indian ride 
Upon his flying courser's side. 
And hanging there will show a small 
And tiying mark for foeman's ball : 
Or long as Avolf can wait for food. 
Or eat it in its uncooked blood. 
His bed has been for years the earth. 
With robe or blanket for liis berth. 



"PHE pESERT JrAIL.. ^7 

He heeds not heaven's fiercest storm. 
Too well she knit to mar the form. 
Though to every crime and ^mssion lent. 
It bears thus much, and still unbent. 
No music ever charms his ear : 
The yell of hate, or wail of fear. 
Accustomed sounds, have often smote 
Like wolf or cougar's le]igthened note, 
Unheeded strike his callous ear, 
Unknown to love, and dead to fear. 
And such the spirit noAV that guides 
Where swift and demon-like he rides. 
The dusky ])and that follows where 
His counsel points to do or dare. • 

And fast along the Desert Trail, 
In midnight's soft and cooling gale. 
Ill long and winding single file, 
Like monstrous snake of southern isle. 
And silent all the shadowed clans 
Like eastern fables genii bands, 
Sent on some mission of the fates 
To weave with woe man's life estates. 
But when the morning sun shall rise. 
And redly glow the orient skies. 
He'll seek the shades of darkest glen, 
Secure from siffht of civil men : 



28 Jme Pesoe^t Jrati.. 

And here unseen lie will alight, 
And lie till shades of dunner night 
Shall turn all rovers' eyes away 
From path he dares not in the day. 
And then his ride's resumed again 
With slackened girth and tiglitened rein : 
And thus nnrecked, and all unseen. 
He speeds to where the lawns of green 
Spread in the moonlight far and wide. 
Where Clear Fork rolls his scanty tide, 
And pauses not till Griffin's steep 
Marks where the soldier Avrapt in sleep 
Heeds not the hush'd, swift gliding band. 
That move to where his horses stan"^. 
And when the sable sentinel 
Nods at the post, not watched too well, 
Hears not beneath the corrall wall 
The steps that light as shadows fall, 
Nor lists the drop of outer bar 
That lets his horses fly afar. 
And when grey morning streaks the skies 
He vainly iTibs his stiffened eyes 
And peers around for missing steed 
Was once his care to iTtb and fee."!. 
For far out on the plain — away 
He fleetly flies from rising day. 



Jhe Pesiert Jrail, S9 

His leach-like rider won't forbear 
To test his utmost bottom there, 
And ere the soldier breaks his rest 
Is flying far— and farther west. 
Hut now the drummer's loud reveille 
Breaks on his ear in startling peal, 
And bugle blast and note of fife 
Unwelcome, call him back to life. 
And accent wild, and hurried tread, 
And loud command in anger said. 
Proclaim too well the Indian's been 
Late on that wild, excited scene. 
And soon dispatched the short repast— 
For aught they know it is the last — 
For soldier's blood is runninsj hio^h, 
And vengeance asks to do or die. 
But there is mingled in that crowd 
A hunter band, with spirits proud. 
And tougher limbs, and ej-es as keen 
As ever glanced along the green, 
And abler for such chase to-day 
Than they who take the Nation's pay, 
Ajid often in the desert raid 
His hand has well the Indian stayed. 
I've known him long and well ; I ween 
No soldier's sfun will cut as clean 



30 Jhe Pesert Jrail, 

A path where Indian stands before, 
But doomed to wallow in his gore. 
But skillful Tonk and trained Lipau 
Must ride before that anxious van, 
And lead the way where flying steed 
Has crushed the turf or bent the reed. 
Note slightest trace or faintest mark 
Struck there by robber in the dark : 
And where the ledge spreads o'er the way 
Would duller guide uncertain stay, 
The upturned spawl or slightest scratch 
His trained and practiced eye will catch, 
And fast upon the Desert Trail 
He flies with speed of mountain gale 
When driving the black storm cloud oer 
Before its waste of waters jjour 
Adown the beetling hills in wrath 
It follows fast the lightning's path, 
And sweeps the valleys far and wide 
Before its foaming, mounting tide. 
His eye shall sweep the desert far, 
And untiring lead the sons of war ; 
And that black eye of eagle look 
Its flashes from the lightning took, 
MTien wandering far to catch the prize 
That greets not now his searching eyes. 



Jhe P^sert Jrail. 31 

And on an_l on. and swiftly on, 
The flying robbers far had gone. 
They follow through that eager day, 
But find no water on the way. 
The water gone from each canteen, 
No limpid lake's inviting sheen, 
No crystal spring is spouting here, 
But all is parched, arid, drear. 
-Bu!; we can do as long as they, 
And sure before another day 
This trail will lea J to water, where- 
We'll bag the heathen in his lair." 
80 argued they, and never guessed 
The trick the wary Indian pressed ; 
For he, the son of craft and guile, 
Had made a pleasant ride the while. 
But tw^o more burning days must run 
Beneath the summer's brazen sun 
Before the spirit proud will yield 
To fiery doom that fate has sealed, 
Or sink to Nature, strike to foe, 
Or faint beneath such tides of woe ; 
So much of sternness nature's given 
To those whom fate or fortune's di'iven 
To live w^here blows the desert blast ; 
But soon or late must feel at last, 



^2 Jhe Pesert Jrail. 

How few the joys, and clearly bought. 
Grants the forbidding land he sought. 
But proudly on the robber rides — 
No deadly ill his way betides ; 
He had not felt the pangs of thirst. 
Of ills that latest kill the worst. 
The swollen tongue and heated brain. 
While every pulse brings hot again 
The heated blood, that mounting high. 
Rolls wild and wide his bloodshot eye. 
And gasping comes the heated breath. 
Then that strange harbinger of death, 
l.^elirium, seizes on the brain, 
And wild and weird his fancies reign. 
Till death shall kindly steal away 
The spirit from its heated clay. 
Ah ! near a lake my eyes have seen, 
P^orgotten now. lay the carbine. 
Choked with sand and eat with rust, 
But still beside the soldier's dust I 
And lonsj his whicenina: bones will lie 
A warning to the passer by. 
That bony finger seems to mark, 
And still the accents here— but hark ! 
They tell a tale thy blood will boil, 
And make thy sick'ning thoughts recoil ! 



Jhe Pesert Jrail, si 

Then haste away, and bear in mind 

'Tis not for thee nor th}' kind 

To live upon the deserts drear ; 

God never fixed thy dwelling here. 

But how fared the fleeing robber clan? 

Is he not something more than man. 

Who for days and nights unwearied stride 

The horse that bears such lengthened ride? 

How long can wait the cooling drink? 

Why not his flagging spirits sink? 

Child of the East, thou hast yet to learn 

The counsels of the desert-born. 

Go learn his spiril : it will teach 

How far the arm of hate can reach — 

How keen the sleuth-hounds vengeance lends 

When that red savage seeks amends. 

When following there thy bloodshot eye 

Saw not the lake he led thee nigh, 

Nor reck'd the dark and deadly game 

That wrapped thy blood in fever's flame. 

Yet led he where the unseen beach 

Lay still within thy easy reach.' 

He knew the lakelet, lying low, 

Would be un>een by soldier foe. 

His horses reined upon the trail, 

He seeks afoot the hidden swale, 



34 The Pesert Jrail. 

And slaked his thirst, resumes the rein 
And way, across the ti'ackless plain. 
His bnckskin'd foot has left no trace 
To mark for foe his watering place ; 
His trail, unbroken, shows not where 
The longed-for water lies so near. 
And this repeats he oft again ; 
He knows like garden walk the plain, 
And eveiy lake and spring can find, 
All mapped on tablet of his mind. 
And who has heard of Indian lost? 
The desert oft his youth has crossed, 
Has hunted all its ^vildness o'er, 
From Phantom Hill to Pecos' Moor. 
It is his home, his natal land. 
Where ceaseless winds have ever fanned 
The heated desert's parching face — 
"Tis there he finds his dwelling* place. 
Though thousand years of wind and sun 
Have baked the desert bleak and dun, 
Where hardly can the antelope 
Subsist upon its arid slope ; 
Where hungry wolf seeks famished hare 
jliid starves the cougar in his lair : 
AMiere lean and light the desert hawk 
Heeilsnot the raven's fainting: croak. 



Jhe Pesert Jrail, 35 

There nature closed her giving hand, 
And frowned upon the accursed land ; 
Yet there he baffles hunger's death 
And battles for the warrior's wreath. 
'Twas far beyond deep Double Lake 
The dark Cornello sternly spake, 
And facing round, he drew the rein 
And warned the soldier, once again. 
To leave the fatal Desert Trail 
Before his wasting strength should fail, 
But bear his pangs another day, 
WheD he would gtiide and lead the way 
To where the Yellow Houses tling 
Their cooling shadows o'er the spring; 
And drawing near that faithful guide, 
They hear his accents softly glide ; 
For his the only tongue but cleaves 
To sw^ollen lip ; the thought it leaves 
Unsaid, the accents will not come — 
Protracted thirst has made them dumb. 
And listening here the hunters stand. 
They meet his eye and press his hand : 
The soldier seeks another route. 
And waves farewell to dusky scout. 
And some there lived the tale to tell ; 
But briefiv told, remembered well. 



^6 JhS pESERT JrA[l. 

Its burning mem'iy bright irapress'd. 

More livid tliere than tongue confessed. 

And they who now impart the tale — 

The few whose life streams did not fail 

While throbbed the brow and burned the blood— 

The few whose frames had all withstood— 

Were men of strongest limb and lung. 

^Vhom fell disease had never wrung ; 

Who on the shores of Negro Lake 

Revived the chords that would not break. 

And straight as can ier-pigeon goes 

From trusted friend to warn of foes, 

The keen Cornello mark'd the way 

To where the Yellow Houses lay. 

High rolls the broad and brazen sun. 

His heating course to zenith run. 

And pours his beams all hot and clear 

O'er forty miles of desert drear. 

Whose parching dryness bars the way 

To where the cooling waters lay : 

And they are faint, and swims the brain. 

And whirling now seems glist'ning plain. 

Tike ocean tides beneath the teet, 

I ncertain where the land to greet : 

lincertain stares the wandering eye. 

Unseen the wav. how far or nio^h. 



And now Cornello turns again, 
And mild his eye and kind his mien, 
And notes how low the vital tide 
Has ebbed in that unequalled ride. 
Born on diy Chihuahua's plain, 
His blood was drawn from Aztec strain ; 
His line of s'res had more withstood. 
With firmer eye and cooler blood, 
Than Arab on Sahara's waste, 
Before that hardier vein had passed 
Beneath the bilious Spaniard's rule. 
And yet from that degenerate school, 
Uncrushed and wild, there sprung a race 
That fearless ride the desert's face 
As eagle in his hio^h career 
When sweeping on the spotted deer. 
And proud as high Castilian stood, 
Cornello of his Aztec blood ; 
He, a true scion of the band 
That never wept a conquered land. 
He quit the saddle, lightly stept, 
Moist now the eye that never wept. 
Though it had looked on scenes of deatir 
And met the lightning teeth to teeth ; 
Had seen the war cloud redly pour, 
With musket's flash and cannon's roar 



Ha 1 seen the brave all recUy laid 
Where fainting wounded moaned for aid- 
All had not wrought upon that eye 
Like g'asping hantcrs there v/ho lie. 
The strong and true, so lowly laid, 
And he must quick prepare a shade 
And stay that fever"s swelling tide. 
But first he kneels by hunter's side 
And feels the pulse, so languid now : 
An:l gazing on that burning brow. 
He notes how faintly ilick'ring there 
The spirit waits to momit in air ; 
How darkly fall Death's shadows near. 
And shakes his threatning sickle here. 
An 1 here tv/o thorny cactus stand — 
True emblem of this arid land — 
And these are tall and broad and strong. 
With many a stiff and studded prong. 
As if Nature had on j^urpose made 
To bear the awning's cooling- shade : 
The hunter's blanket here supplies 
A shade from burning sun and skies. 
And while Cornello watches here 
He sees a wild horse sweeping near. 
Thrown high his head and tossed his mane. 
Now snorting stops and paws the plain. 



Jhz. pESERT Jraii.. 59 

A moment paused liis swift careei;, 
Nor little recked the rifle's power; 
A moment blazed its Upas breath. 
The next he quivered there in death. 
Quick drowned his neigh the rifle's roar. 
And careful caught, his life streams pour, 
And this in part has here supplied 
The throbbing veins b}^ fever dried. 
The fever cooled, with weaning day 
And when Luna's beams began to play 
High o'er that cooled and freshened land. 
Then mounts again that languid band. 
But weak and reeling goes the steed. 
But Mustang he, the toughest breed 
That "ever served a horseman's need," 
With water less and lighter feed. 
But with deep'niug night's cooler air 
He walks the way all proudly there. 
While Polar star and Luna's light 
Still leads that wondi^ous guide aright, 
Across that pathless moonlit land. 
Whose spreading wastes of arid sand. 
On Nature's face a blighting scar. 
That tells of worlds' unannaled war. 
And silent all, and grim as death. 
Save when the low wind's moaning breath 



40 JhE pESERT JrAIL. 

Shall waft the starving cougar's cry, 
Or gleams the lean wolf's glaring eye. 
That tireless watches here the prey 
That slowly moves o'er desert way. 
And once in that long night was heard 
The hopeless cry of desert bird — 
The longest, lowest wail of fear 
That ever smote the trembling ear — 
Like lost and wandering spirits' wail, 
80 mournful trembles on the gale. 
And though we have but little fear 
Of aught that walks the desert here, 
That awful nete, that flies along 
Like doom of death in other tongue, 
Will strike a thrill t© stoutest heart, 
And make the firmest vet'ran start. 
I've passed this wondrous bird, or wraith. 
By daylight on the desert path, 
Like statue btauding on the mound 
That marked his home within the ground. 
And he weuld turn and bow to me 
In dignified, stiff courtesy, 
As master spirit might descend. 
And still to mortals slightly bend 
In deference t© the formal rules 
Still honored in our social schools, 



The Pesert Jrail, 

And then with solemn, pleading look, 

A glance we ever dread to brook. 

But nor sigh, nor sign, nor whispered word. 

Has scout or hunter ever heard. 

vSave that low and mournful wail 

That lives so long upon the gale. 

And ghastly spreads the desert there, 

Like Luna's wastes when seen afar 

By eye of science, piercing high, 

Marks well that desert of the sky. 

In dead career she rolls on high, 

Nemesis of the upper sky, 

And while to us she seems all fair, 

A mummy 'mong the planets there 

8orae blighting curse or volcanic breath 

Has wrapt her shores long in death ; 

Her unrecorded life, though vast, 

She but reflects a day that's past. 

But when her orb is dipping low 

Behind the sand hills' lowly brow, 

And darker rise night's shadows o'er 

The plain, lit by her rays no more, 

The morning staF's hidden ray 

Heralds not yet the coming day ; 

No light to guide or point the way, 

For near, the Yellow Houses lay. 



42 Jhe Pesert Jrail. 

And in the dark bis eye might not 
Note that low and unmarked grot : 
And here Cornello halts again, 
And soon upon the level jDlain 
The wearied hunters sink to sleep, 
Where howling wolves the vigils keep ; 
But their restless guide still hurries on, 
And just as night melts into dawn 
He sees the sparkling brooklets ne 
Inviting 'neath his ro.vished eye I 
Nor long the di^aiight delays him now. 
Nor long he laves his burning brow ; 
Nor long his prayer of gratitude 
To Giver of this greatest good. 
Remembered those v/ho, faint and lank, 
Lay di'eaming there too weak to thank. 
To thank I Could tongue of earth's most favored tell 
The thoughts that in their bosoms swell, 
When grasping there the cool canteen 
That gave them back to life again? 



The Hunter's Defense. 

[In the early winter of 187-, an ex-United States 
Deputy Surveyor and his little sou thirteen j^ears of age, 
with the twoioju purpose of sport aud profit, had, with- 
out knowing the imminent danger of that particular 
locality, pitched their camp at the head springs of the 
Colorado river, on the Staked Plains. The child, in 
pursuit of aulijlypc, Lad v.andcred a mile or more from 
camp, when he was attacked by a large party of Indians. 
The father, heaving the rapid firing, rushed to his aid 
and the two made a defense unparalleled in history.] 

THE I>TDIAn's camp. 

On the dark sliores of Cedar Lake 
The Indian prophet boldly spake. 
And 'mid their orgies strange and weiri 
He had foretold that vi<5tory's bird 
Would on their banner snrely light 
When next they met the craven wdiite. 
And these dark bluffs, all cedar boiuid, 
AVith savage war songs loud resound, 
Till w^olf and panther, startled, left 
The cave that yawaied beneath the cleft. 



44 JhE J^UNTER'S pEPENSE. 

And answered from more distant dells 

Jn notes less wild than Indian yells. 

The owlet, dazzled by the light, 

His eyes unused to such a sight, 

Had winged awa\^ in circling flight 

And sought the shades of gloomier night, 

And answered with his dreary wail, 

From darkest copse within the vale, 

In notes that drifted down the strand 

Like warnings from a spirit land. 

The shaggy bison dosing lay 

In many droves above the way; 

But when upon his startled ear 

These songs of war and wails of fear 

Full shrilly struck, he shook his mane, 

And then away across the plain 

With heavy rolling gait he tore. 

Till darker vale and stiller shore 

He found, and then with starting eyes 

He lists the echo till it dies. 

Now the painted Medicine Pole 

They dance around with mystic bowl, 

Till from tfbe shadow hunting ground 

The confined spirits whisper round, 

And teach in weird and ghastly way 

How many each red brave shall s\siy. 



j HE I^UNTEr's pEFEivSE. 45 

Tlie cumpfire burns and blazes liigli, 
Till 'oainst the duti aud mottled sky, 
In startlino- mirage strangely flung, 
AVhere tallest cedars overhung, 
The ghoul-like forms in bold relief; 
And none so awful as the chief. 
It seemed as if old Satan had 
From the dark regions of tte bad 
Well gathered here the delegates 
In dark convention ef tbe Fates, 
As swiftly through the wizard dan(*e 
The grim and grimy figure! prance. 
While the fitful shadows glancing fall 
Among the darksome cedars tall ; 
And all combined to give the air 
Of a demon horde assembled tkere. 
They danced with lusty might and main, 
Till Luna, hanging o'er the plain, 
Warned them of the approaching hour 
WHien they must aaount and swiftly scour 
The barren leagues that lay between 
Their dark camp and the valleys green, 
Which in moonlit beauty lay around 
The Colorado's highest mound, 
Where a hunter and his boy lay 
►Sweetly dreaming of the day 



46 JhE J^UNTER's pEFENSE, 

When they should meet the loved at home. 
And ne'er again on desert roam. 

THE hunter's camp. 

'Twas where the Colorado brings, 
In purling brooks from crystal springs, 
The cooling di-aughts that daily fill 
The countless herds upon the hill. 
'Twas where the wolf and antelope 
Bask in the sunlight on the slope. 
Twas where the monster Rattlesnake 
Distilled his venom in the brake. 
Twas snarling wolf and cougar gaunt 
And desert lion's favorite haunt ; 
And evening's shadows ever bring 
These untamed dwellers to the spring. 
Twas where the dark Comanche came 
In search of wild or human game. , 
'Twas where the thieving Indian bands. 
And all the dark and devilish, clans 
That prey upon their fellow men^ 
In turn sought shelter in the glen, '-' 

Here a hunter and his boy found 
A charming range and hunting ground- 
Surveyor had to hunter turned — 
The sportsman's art had early learned ; 



yHE j>iuNTER's p^FENSE. 47 

His heavy Sbai'p's unerring aim 
Brought down afar the wily game. 
No ruffian he ; of gentle blood 
And noble mien, he proudly stood ; 
Already on the lists of Fame 
He had inscribed an honored name. 
The lightning tkroes of pain had scarred 
His ample brow, but had not mai-red 
A heart still pure and true to love; 
And he w^as one who well could prove 
How much man will do and dare 
For those he loves, or for the fair 
-Boy, who so soon will keenly feel 
How trusty are his nerves of steel. 
Far from camp the boy had strayed ; 
The wily game had long delayed 
The sure shot that would end the chase ; 
And then in glee he would retrace 
His way across the flow'ry lawns. 
With steps as agile as the fawn's, 
And happy meet the father s smile 
That waits impatiently the while, 
A fearful sight his eye hath seen, 
For far away across the green — 
But in full view — a straggling horde 
Of painted warriors swiftly rode. 



48 The f-fuMTER's Pefense. 

And these keen riders of tlie plain 
Have seen the child and drawn tiie rein ; 
And Qoai'k how easy is the prey 
That falls before the lance to-day. 
Like eagles gathering to the prey. 
They form them now in wild array ; 
Like kurricane sweeping o'er the main, 
They gallop wildly o'er the plain, 
And sweep like Alpine avalanche 
Between biia and his fatbe^-'s ranche. 
All hope of aid or flight was gone, 
And calmly there he stood alone. 
But he will dearly sell his life ; 
Before the barb'rous scalping knife 
Shall clip a lock of his fair hair 
They'll find, like lion in h's lair, 
He'll sterol}' fight, and marksman keen. 
With many a bitter death between, 
With the swift messenger unseen. 
Like lightning's flash it cutsas clean. 
One thought f©r mother, father, God, 
His rest sticks planted in the sod, 
Aad then with level aim he poured 
The deadly lead into the horde. 
With even beats as swells the tide, 
And fatal aim, that child replied 



yHE J^unter's Drffnse. 49 

*'Witli shots that answered fast and well" 

The sumnaoDS of these fiends of hell. 

And many an Indian mother wept, 

For where those heavy Creedmoors swept — 

Where Black Cloud's brav<3st late had been — 

Where rifles flashed and shone the sheen 

Of glit'ring spear and wild black eye — 

His best and bravest warriors lie. 

Now sweeps the savage o'er the plain ; 

That trusty rifle rings again, 

And oft again, and ever will 

Prove the superior tact and skill 

That produced the noble arm 

That kept the hunter boy from harm. 

Around his rests the bullets tear, 

And sing and whistle through his hair ; 

But calm his brow, and brightly shone 

His clear blue eye, that met alone 

The hellish shouts and savage glare 

Of tliat wild mob who'd scalp him there. 

It seemed as if no human power 

Could save him from that fatal hour. 

Like sailor on the trackless deep. 

Where roll the waves that never sleep — 

Where lurks the storm that ever waits 

To do the bidding of the fates. 



50 JhE J^UNTEr's pEFENSE, 

AMien rolls its fury o'er the wave, 

That foaming opes a huugiy grave, 

And seething crests are lifted high 

That bid his fondest hopes to die : 

AVheu his staunch vessel quakes and reel'^, 

And every creaking timber feels 

The power of the blasting breath 

That drives her on the track of death ; 

Where fast the snowy breakers roll, 

That chill the blood and pall the soul. 

When canvas strong and noble mast 

Are doubly bent before the blast, 

And howls the storm and glares the flash. 

He stands him firm amid the crash, 

And makes the mighty iTidder feel 

His iron hand upon the wheel ; 

His ship obeys that neiwous arm. 

And bears her bravely 'gainst the storm. 

And veering from that dang'rous yaw. 

She sweeps above the ocean's maw 

Like joyous bird of flitting wing 

That cleaves the azure lights of. spiing. 

He hears no more the deaf ning crash, 

For swifter than the lightning's flash. 

And higher than the storm cloud driven. 

His thanks are wafted up to heaven. 



So well lie worked tliat heavy gun, 

He deemed his life was lost or won— 

So skillful laid the rifle's sight, 

And firmly met the unequal fight. 

A father's eagle eye hath seen, 

And now^ he bounds him o'er the green 

Like antelope or nimble deer — 

With rapid bounds he di-aws him near ; 

His heavy gun in enfilade, 

All deadly aimed, its terror stayed 

And checked in blood that rash advance, 

And ke]3t afar the thirsty lance. 

As often as that rifle pealed 

A warrior in his saddle reeled. 

And many a writhing savage lay 

Like wounded snake in agony. 

When the boy heard that rapid roar 

And saw that line of fire pour, 

And loud and clear above the din 

He heard his father's rifle ring, 

One long loud shout of welcome gave 

To the daring father who would save — 

Who rushed to interpose his breast 

WTiere the deaths flew as thick and fast 

As ever from Pandora's box. 

And these in stunning thunder shocks, 



52 Jhe 'KrrNTER'S pEFENSE, 

Like eagle baffled of the prey. 

These swifter coursers swoop away. 

They circle quick and form again. 

And thickly drive the leaden rain ; 

Young Black Cloud, scowling in the van. 

Inspires anew the fiendish clan - 

With yells inhuman vainly strive 

The dauntlef*" hunters now to drive. 

With steady nerve and dauntless eye — 

(They know to flee i» but to die) — 

With deeper skill and practiced hand 

'I'hey decimate the dusky band ; 

And faster now the Indian falls, 

Pierced by Sharp's unerring balls ; 

For ever}' bnllet sent to rest 

Some savage Indian's troublous breast. 

AVhen these staunch ijunters would not swerve, 

It proved too much for Indian nerve. 

Then pallid fear and smarting pain, 

Grim terror glaring from the slain 

Like spectres from a demon world. 

Whose deadly darts unerring hurled, 

Wilh all that superstition dreads. 

Hung like a death pall o'er the heads- 

Of the few who still remained 

Awd until now the fight maintained. 



JkE }>IuNTER'S pEFENSE. 53 

Tht^n froze the veins and chilled the fire, 
And vanished now the Indian's ire ; 
The wild warwhoop he raised no more, 
His soul had had enough of gore. 
And then he turned in wild dismay. 
And swiftly urged his steed away ; 
Low crouching on his saddle bow, 
Mis fastest efforts seemed too slow. 
The lieathen faith that bade him bear 
The dead awa}'. in that wild scare 
Was all forgot in sel5sh fear ; 
No laws of faith could hold him here. 
And when 'gainst distant horizon 
The panting steeds ui"ged swiftly on. 
These long-range guns still surely aimed, 
Another and another maitned. 
And when the latest farewell shot. 
The heavy barrels glim'riug hot, 
To cool again were laid aside. 
He then with beaming joy and pride. 
But heart too full for utterance, pressed 
His Trojan boy to his breast ; 
And then r,he strong and noble form 
That never shook in battle's storm. 
Quaked now like willow in the wind, 
And tears relieved his burdened mind. 



54 The ffuNTER s Pefeintse- 

And then frooi glmstlj scene they turned. 
That horrid vic-t"ry. t-heaplj earned, 
Had been enough to pall tl>e heart 
And msike the tears of nature start ; 
But Nature seemed as calm and still 
As if there had no sweeping ill — 
Like Upas breath or dark simoom — 
Drove like the darkling clouds of doom 
O'er these peaceful plains to-day, 
And swept the Indian's strength away. 
The clouds of smoke had rolled on high. 
And like Death's banners in the sky 
In sombre folds they wafted slow 
Above the gory field below. 
And seemed to bear the wraiths away 
Into the realms of brighter day ; 
And long will wait the dusky maid — 
The bullet hath her lover stayed : 
From foot of Colorado's mound 
He passed to happier hunting ground. 
But strangely dark the flashing glance 
Of him who taught to poise the lance 
Tlie 3'outh who fell, all proudly game, 
Before the white man's surer aim. 
And they— the mothers of the brood — 
Like tigers when they smell tke blood 



JhE J^UNTER'S pEFENSE. 55 

Of murdered young, with savage 5 re 

y\ nd sullen wor \ and glnnce of^fire, 

And mutlcr'd threat, and fiendish scowl — 

,\li join in long unearthly howl. 

Then with the tribe in Dance of Death, 

In whis[)er'd plans 'neath bnted breath, 

They [)lan tlie ambush in the lair ; 

Then let tlie hateful white beware, 

Aiu' when the ti-ain through the gorge shall pass, 

(Unseen the foeman in the grass.) 

'I'he rifle's flash behind the rock 

^^'ill give no warning of the shock. 

hy arm of vengeance sternly driven, 

Unheralded as bolt from heaven, 

I'he leveled gun or doubled bow 

Speeds swift the shaft thnt lays him low ; 

And even now, ei'e quivering life 

Has left the form, the scalping knife 

The bleeding scalp's already torn — 

A ghastl}' trophy to be worn ; 

Jt makes the wearer noble, great ; 

It is an Indian's pledge of hate, 

And many a hapless white shall fall 

Before the Indian's ambushed ball ; 

And oft the luckless immigrant 

J*repares at spring his breakfast scant 



56 Jhe j^unter's Pefense- 

For the Indian, who will ride his horse 
And dance around his lifeless corse. 
And like the wolf, with instincts keen 
Will follow far. and still nnseen. 
And strike the blow in pass or glen 
Like serpent gliding in the fen ; 
Nu halt he gives, but sends the pang : 
Ino rattle shakes, but sinks the fang ; 
Or, like the cougar's lengthened bound. 
When springing on the baling hound. 
He darts fiom far to deal the blow 
With speed of shaft from doubled bow — 
Like eagle from his poise in air 
Darts down upon the timid hare, 
So he, from eagle's eyrie high. 
Where canon's wall against the sky 
^Lnrks the spot where the eaglets feed 
And scream f©r flesh with jackal greed ; 
Where blasted shrub and shattered rock 
Tell of the lightning's rending shock. 
But Indian's eye, like eagle's sight, 
Is never dimmed by any bight, 
And where the cougar dares not tread 
Has followed high the eagle's lead — 
Where none but birds or Indian's foot 
Has dared to trust the slender root — 



T'HE }iuNTER'S PeFENSE. 57 

And watclies from that dizzy liigbt, 
With dauntless eye and searching sight. 
With patience, through the longest day 
That promises the chance to slay. 
And when the traveler toils below, 
Where briars run and cactus grow, 
/»11 deadly aimed with vision keen 
Will roar anon that short carbine. 
But darkly desperate as he is, 
There's one redeeming feature his — 
He'll never taint an Indian's name 
With midnight murder's horrid shame ; 
The* night assassin's stealthy blow 
He dares to leave to civil foe ; 
And I have often safel3' slept 
Where these red warriors softly crept, 
And doubtless they have often looked 
Upon my form, and neve^' brooked 
Or entertained the wish to slay ; 
They spurned to kill me as I lay. 
And often in my campfire's glare 
My breast has shown a mark so fair 
No coward's hand could then forego 
Such tempting hour to lay me low. 
I heard no Indian's bullet sing, 
Nor saw the flash, nor heard the nog* 



The J^unter's Pefense. 

Nor saw tlie fiizzen's rolling spark 
By lurking foeraan in the dark. 
And I would trust unto the death 
His friendly vow and pligiited faith. 
No Indian with me ever broke 
His pleilge or promise once bespoke. 
And I could tell— but 'twere too long — 
(K Indian's trust and white man's wrong: 
But deep the cutting truths would sting 
If pen of mine sliould truly bring 
And grave upon the blushing page 
The crimes that iji this Christi m age 
Have ruthless sent the thousand ills 
The friendless Indian keenly feels. 
Of pledge forgot and treaty broke, 
And all but slavery's galling yoke. 
A nations stint and agents' greed 
Have rol)bed the Indian in his need. 
And froTi his childhood's happier lands 
Have drove him to the desert sands. 
For full the catalogue and long — 
A Liundred years of goading wrong — 
Have sapped at last the Indian's prime 
And taught him what he knows of crime : 
And rapidly his race has run, 
Like winter's snow in summer's sun, 



The ]^unter"s Pefenbe, 5^ 

For where the holy nntheras waft 
The Indian gets the crazing draught, 
And where fair science has her schools 
Inviting wait the gaming pools, 
And smarting 'neath the ruthless rod 
He learns to doubt the white man's God, 
Let him who'd cast the coward's taunt 
Go meet tlie Indian in his haunt; 
He is no worm beneath tiie heel, 
But freeman horn, and he can feel — 
And fiercely, sternly he will show, 
AVhen roiling back the tide of woe 
From mountain snow or desert sand- 
How dearly sold his fatherland. 
His proven on a thousand fields, 
Mis is the soul tliat never yields ; 
He's pledged a thousand hopeless ?.ghts 
To never kiss the hand that smites. 
Have I not heard tlie battle's roar 
^Vhen dying babe in mother's gore 
ITas nerved anew the warrior's arm 
To roll the tide of blood along? 
Have I not seen — do I not knovv^ 
>Vho struck the first insulting blow? 
Where Young's fair land in beauty lies — 
A happy clime 'neath sunny skies— 



5o J'he j^unter's Pefense, 

Was once the red man's quiet home, 
Before the treach'rous stranger come. 
'Tvvas here that fell the dastard blow 
That filled the Indian's cup of woe ; 
'Twas here the infant's dying wail- 
But you would shudder at the tale ! — 
A thousand des'late homes have paid 
Too dearly for that needless raid. 
Though untaught, heathen, strangely wild. 
As much as we he's nature's child. 
Oh I can we not be brave and just. 
And give the olive off'ring first? 
Land of the Free ! the proudest name 
That ever blazoned page of fame-^ 
Most potent, brightest talisman 
That man e'er gave to struggling man — 
The farthest gleaming beacon light 
That ever broke the tyrant's night- 
Earth's millions smiled upon thy birth 
And hailed th}^ light remotest earth. 
The chain that bound the ages past 
Hath melted in thy rays at last, 
And Liberty's triumphs fast atone 
While Freedom smiles upon her own. 
Upon th}' bright escutcheon's gleam 
So foul a stain does ill beseem 



JhE I^UNTER'S pEFENSE. 6l 

A nation that still leads the earth 
In every deed of fame and worth. 
The tongues of millions chant thy name 
In longest, loudest blast of fame — 
Thou, whose bright auspicious star 
The trembling tyrant sees afar, 
And knows its bright effulgent ray 
Is melting fast his chains away — 
Oh ! let not yet thy temple fade 
From corners faith so nobly laid; 
Go teach thy agents better grace. 
The hypocrites of every race — 
The fair in word, but dark in deed — 
Apostates vile of every creed — 
Of demon heart and seraph face — 
They stain thy honor with disgrace, 
To crush the weak and aid the strong — 
To warp the right, abet the wrong — 
Thy honest mandates ever foil, 
And fatten on the stolen spoil. 
The vampires that on his vitals feed 
Are harpies of as fou! a breed 
As ever curs't the ages dark, 
Before one ray of freedom's spark 
Had gleamed along the roll of time 
And showed old Mammon's sordid crime 



62 



A dougk faced dowd}^ doubly damned, 
Whose sordid mind is ever crammed 
With schemes of most rapacious gain. 
With no remorse for others' pain ; 
A walking fraud, a living lie, 
A ghoulish thief of saintl}^ eye, 
Too mean to live, unfit to die, 
Most sordid wretch beneafh the sky. 
Oh ! stay his grasping, felon hand, 
That robs the starving Indian band, 
For famine is the stinging goad 
That drives him on to deeds of blood. 



While she, the wife and mother, pressed 
The cooing infant to her breast — 
There in the far off hunter's home 
She lay and prayed for those that roam. 
In the long watches of the night 
She often woke with startled sight ; 
In dreams she saw the savage foe. 
Swift and snake-like, crouching low. 
And then the flash and startling peal 
Of wild warwhoop and clanging steel ; 
And when she saw her lov'd ones die 
She woke in screaming agony. 



And then, 'twixt ho[>e and strange unrest, 

She walches toward the boundless west, 

And hngers long at latticed pane ; — 

*'Oh ! will they never come again?" 

Ah ! such is life ! Such terrors come 

To those that stay and those that roam. 

But shadow'd evils are the worst 

That ever darken'd, ever curat 

Man's uncertain paths of life ' 

From youth to age. and all too rife 

O'er some of us they darkling hang 

Till life is but a lengthen'd pang. 

Imagined evils murder more 

Than ever fall in battle's go^'e, 

And superstitions further go 

To swell the tide of human woe 

Than Pestilence or Famine gaunt, 

Or all the ills that follow Want ; 

For the handwriting on the wall 

In gloomy moods is seen by all, 

And dreams and nightmares still harass 

The sage and fool and ev'ry class. 

And signs and omens still portend 

Some dire mishap or sudden end ; 

Some falling orb knock into pi 

A world so often doomed to die, 



64 JhE ^UNTER's pEFENSE. 

AnJ 'midst the dust of such a crash 

Go to — nothing — like a flash. 

The crafty tramp or maudlin clown 

Can set agog the idle town. 

For fifty cents he will relate 

The hidden things in store of fate ; 

Like Endor's hag, the Gypsy crone, 

With look of seer and sibyl tone — * 

With many dark and occult tricks — 

Can paint the scene to river Styx. 

But I will leave the grov'ling jade ; 

My pen rejects the pasquinade. 

How vain and weak — -how darkly blind — r 

To heed these shadows of the mind ! 

But ju Iga not harshly! Lend the light 

That shades the wrong and shows the right. 

Perhaps fair Science's rising ray 

May sometime di'ive the ghouls away, 

And cards and coffee cups reveal 

The mystic turns in Fortune's wheel, 

And thousand strange, yet simple signs, 

Show what's in other people's minds. 

'Twas when the sun was sweeping low, 

The mountains round in amber glow, 

Began to raise the curtain shade 

And hang the gloaming o'er the glade, 



JhE J^UNTER's pEFENSE. 

Where lay the hunter's lovely home, 
Whose flowers spring from riehtst loam— 
Where rose and vine and creeper run, 
And waste their glories in the sun. 
But all was hush'd ; you might have heard 
The faintest note ©f smallest bird. 
Where leans the elm tree o'er the rill 
Sits silent yet the whippoorwill, 
As loth to offer cheerless song 
Where happier music might belong. 
Naught but the night wind's gentlest swell, 
Or tinkling sound of distant bell, 
Or murm'ring sound of trickling rill, 
That flows adown the tow'ring hill, 
Breaks now the stillness of the glade 
That lies within the mountain shade, 
Where brightly in the deep'ning gloam 
Is nestled fair the hunter's home ; 
And no shipwreck'd sailor e'er saw, 
When drifting in the foaming flaw. 
The saving lighthouse' beacon light 
With happier heart or gladder sight 
Than they who from yon mountain's brow 
Are gazing on its glories now. 
And now upon the 'raptured ear, 
In sweeter tones and notes as clear 



66 The Hunter's Defense 

And sefter than the mocking-bird 

From loving mate has ever heard, 

Breaks forth the wife in roundelay ; 

And such the potent music's sway 

The restless infant's hushed its cry 

When softly swells her lullaby ; 

No sweeter strain from fairer throat 

Did ever on the night wind float. 

And this is drank by eager ear 

Of two, how close, how more than dear, 

And while upon the mountain's brow 

They listen to her music now. 

While softer than ^olian notes 

The music to the mountain floats ; 

No sweeter song from fairer wife 

Did ever cheer a husband's life. 

Oh ! can he leave the home again 

Where lives and swells that happy strain? 

How can he steel a husband's breast 

And turn from home so doubU^ blessed? 

Oh ! will he e'er again exchange 

For toilsome chase on desert range, 

Where savage beast and wary foe 

Forever wait to lay him low, 

For loving smile and virtuous kiss 

And all a mortal knows of bliss? 



Tortuous are our lines of life ; 

The world sees not our spirits' strife ; 

Unseen the undercurrents strong 

That drive our life boat strangely wrong. 

But when she sang ''Tiie Soldier's Dream" 

He could not brook the touching theme ; 

A loud report on welkin rang, 

And then the wife like chamois sprang — 

For well she knew the signal gun 

That told the hunter's wanderings done — 

And long before the echoes died 

^he sped like fawn up mountain side, 

And soon in tearful joy pressed 

Her son and husband to her breast. 

How sweetly falls such happy hour. 

When Heaven's dearest blessings shower ; 

When loves nnite to never part. 

And flow these dew drops of the heart : 

When every pleasure hastes to fill. 

And quick forgotten every ill ; 

For on his memory's tablet there 

Was wiped away each rankling scar ; 

No more afar will hunter roam 

As Ions as shines the light of home. 



Colorado Jack. 



A May day sun had rolled on high, 
And from the garish sun and sky 
I rested 'neath the cooling shade 
A spreading live oak greenly laid 
Athwart the fresh and loamy soil 
To plow had been my morning toil. 
Its beauty held for me a charm. 
I would not strike it from the farm ; 
A broad and spreading evergreen, 
It ever wore the summer's sheen ; 
'Midst winter's ice or rimed with snow, 
Its foliage owned the summer's glow. 
And broke the dull monotony 
That lay beneath the wintry sky, 
And called us back to happier time 
When summer smiled upon her clime ; 
It ever wore the smile of spring ; 
The happy birds came there to sing 
'Midst this oasis of the vale. 
And many a softer song and tale 



POLORADO farx. 69 

Their warbling throats would seem to tell. 

That wove with softest fairy spell 

The woof of many a happy hour 

Unknown save in the wildwood's bower ; 

And there beneath its boughs I found 

A softer couch upon the ground 

Than pampered monarch ever blessed. 

Although his stately bed were dressed 

With finest furs or softest down 

That ever graced the breast of swan. 

When sought from wine and wassail's roil — 

The rest that follows humble toil. 

While lying there upon my back 

There came to greet me hunter Jack — 

Colorado Jack. I knew him by 

His stalwart form and eagle eye ; 

I'd met him on the pathless range 

Where Duck Creek heads against the plains 

Had eat his sav'ry bison ham, 

Cooked by his ''dug-out's" dingy jamb ; 

Had shared his friendship as his fare, 

And wound the yarns he spun me there. 

He'd spent near half the fleeting span 

Of days allotted unto man 

Upon the w^ild frontier's domain, 

A hunter on the western plain. 



POLCRADO jIaCK. 

1 did not know the deep disgust 
In which he held the fields of dust 
Where toil Cnin's millions 'neath the ban 
Fruit loving Eve bequeathed to man. 
And, proudlj' sweeping round ra}- arm. 
I pointed out m}' valley farn. 
Sure of some word of praise or clieer. 
Jack shrugged his shoulders with a sneer 
And eye and lip too well betrayed 
Mow much he felt this keen tirade : 
TLie boy goes ''vvhisth'ng to his plow" — 
Methinks 1 hear his carol now — - 
And sweetly swells his thoughtless song 
As with measured tread he plods along 
The fresh and teeming furrow where; 
Late cut his bright and gleaming share. 
With slouchy garb and shuffling gait 
He treads the path marked out by fate : 
His absent eye and mind heeds not 
The weary toiler's cheerless lot. 
I whistled, too, when first I tried 
The thousand ills his way betide — 
The trade the journals love to show 
On paper with such happy glow, 
With hands that never held the plow 
Or wiped the brine from thr@bbing brow 



pOLCRADO fACK. 

^Vlth soiled sleeve or trembling hand 
"^Vhile toiling o'er the heated land. 
With shoulders bent and limbs in pain 
lie tracks tlie wear}' way again, 
As cut by cut, and foot by foot, 
'Xeath many a grub and running root, 
\Vith many a stall and jerk and pull, 
^Vitil shackling nag or heady ball. 
Then rolled in pain, from over toil 
Too long maintained on stuliborn soil, 
Througli sultry night with aching liml). 
Oh I c'ouldst thou take tlie place of him. 
Thou kid -gloved praiser <>f the farm. 
And wrench in [)ain thy puny arm 
Would twist awry thy pictured ]o3'S 
That wait to bless the farmer's boys. 
It may be ver}' nice, but I 
Can't for the life of me see why. 
There's not a schoolmiss reached thirteen 
Among the thousands I have seen 
But who has told in lofty strain 
Of "'golden fields of waving grain." 
The farmer gets his meed of praise, 
But 'tis a kind of charity haze — 
A costless breath of flimsy song — 
A "will o' the wisp" that gfearas along 



POLORADO JACK. 

l.'hi-GUgt heat and dust and diifting sand. 

AVhere thorns and thistles curse the land- 

And under the dark curse of Cain 

He totters through a life of pain, 

Unhonored and unheralded, 

lind often much too poorlj^ fed. 

"Forget it not" — "■I'll none in mine" — 

I'd sooner cross the roaring brme 

Wioh but an inch of timber thrown 

Between me and the dark unknown. 

And in the brakes round Singapore — 

'W'liere tigers jell and lions roar, 

And loafers chase — where serpents hiss 

Ai d man salutes with Joab kiss — 

I'd rather spend my days among, 

Though nature's savage hand has flung 

Throughout her tangled jungles dark 

A ruddier blaze and wilder spark 

O^ savage spirit's seething fire, 

That burns in hot, unsated ire. 

Than any other spot of earth 

In brake or jungle brought to birth. 

I'd rather hunt for British pay, 

And live by what my hand could slay 

Of India's monstrous snarling breeds 

Than Cain-like dig 'mong teeming weeds 



Colorado JIack. 73 

That spring to choke the tardy grain 
That wilts for want of work or rain> 
And now you may just bet your life 
Tore I'd maintain a ^'corn fed" wife, 
Perhaps like '^Tam O'Shanter's" spouse — 
AVith restless tongue and stormy broAVS 
Forever lo wring o'er my way 
Through hideous night «nd hopeless da;^', 
AVith voice shrill and fierce as high, 
And taunt and menace in her eye. 
And cutting glance and insult keen. 
And fiercely glaring savage mien — 
Hurl brooms and jennies at my head. 
And snapping at me wish me dead ; 
(S;:ch scenes indeed would *-gar me greet." 
I ne'er c':^uld deem such counsels sweet. 
And v\'ould no!: mind my nerves to try 
My patience "gainst her devLltr5\) 
Or hear the little wrangling Jacks, 
^Ith unkempt hair and ragged backs, 
Diseased and squalid, pale and gaunt, 
Eoil o'er the bitter crumbs that ^Vrnt 
Has snatched from Famine but to give 
The beggar's bitterest boon — to live 
From birth through idle, vicious youth, 
And manhood driftiiiir far from truth— 



'J4 POLORADO ylACK. 

A swarm of superstitious tools, 
To swell the world's great crop of fools ; 
Or, see the wife who truly loved 
In such ordeal too hardly proved, 
With wasting form and weeping eye 
Recount the wants I'd fain supply : 
Compelled to watch, day after day. 
Her happy spirit wear away 
'Xeath pain and toil, want and woe. 
All powerless to stay the blow 
That threatens soon to sweep from earth 
The only light that cl;eers my hearth, 
And watch the gaunt form at the door 
That ever hovers round the poor, 
And find it daily ghastlier grown — 
A barrier 'cross my pathway th^-own — 
A dusk and darkly blighting shade 
Between me and God's bounty laid — 
And struggle for my daily bread 
With tired heart and aching head — 
The scanty, stinted recompense 
Wealth still metes out to indigence. 
Though life's replete with toils and cares, 
And wrenching pains and pallisg fears, 
And errors, ever followed fast 
By retribution's searching blast ; 



Colorado ^ack, 75 

And thoiioh our little darkened day 
Is rarely cheered by fliek'ring ray 
Of light let in to mortals here. 
With much to hate and naore to fear. 
" Tis more than all to feel and know 
There's love above for all below. 
And something cheering still to be 
Untrammeled yet and proudly free. 
And 'fore I'd own a granger's guild 
I'd see this country's farms untilled. 
Bear northern thistles, burs or tares. 
Uncut by plodding plowman's shares, 
Till one vast brake had roughly dressed 
Each barren field within the west ; 
I'd go to where the Florida Keys 
Lie low along her treacherous seas. 
For there beneath the greenish wave, 
In many a secret coral cave- 
Unseen save by the mermaid's eye — 
The crumbling bones of thousands lie 
Piled and heaped in ghastly rows 
And white as Polar Mountain snows, 
Where mermaid njmphs and naiads keep 
The strange arcana of the deep. 
Here wreckers tell of ghastly sights 
Seen o'er the waves on stormy nights ; 



76 POLORADO jIaCK. 

And many a sight and sound of fear 

Has palled the fisher's eye and ear, 

When si'iig on high the ocean gales, 

And breaker's foam like bellying sails 

Is flung on high be'^ore the blast 

Like flying shreds from f?hiver'd mast. 

And booming thunders o'er the seas 

Long roll their echoes 'mong the trees. 

And ocean from her deepest cave 

Has flung on high her mountain wave 

That roilb upon the trembling shore 

With stai'tling crash and deaf'niug roar, 

And nigh I aiid wtoini and flash combine 

To show that death has laid his line 

And flung his meshes far and vride 

Along thip seething, v\"hirling tide. 

Then come the wraiths from thousand wrecks. 

To walk again their phantom decks, 

And many a pale and sheeted form 

Is seen 'midst flashes of the storm, 

And many a shriek and startling w^ail 

Is borne upon the howling gale. 

And awe-struck wreckers tell again 

Of phantom ships that sail the main, 

Misguiding with their treach'rous lights — 

Like floating gas on murky nights — 



COLORADO JACK. 77 

The ships that Fate has doomed to death 
Beneath the storm king's Upas breath ; 
And all the straggling Gypsy host 
That find subsistence on her coast 
Wear haggard, scared, cadaverous looks, 
As thougli oft used to sight of spooks ; 
And, if attention ye will lend, 
They'll make thy hair stand stark on end. 
But mine won't rise. I can't believe ; 
For storm-lit scenes will oft deceive, 
And foam-capt breakers oft belie 
When viewed with supt^rstition's eye. 
But this, aud more of real harm, 
I'd risk in preference to the farm, 
And take my chances on her flats 
Against the fever, flies and gnats, 
Where a tropic sun forever warm? 
To hungry life her myriad swarms — 
Her insect clouds that buzzing pour 
Along her dark and dismal shore — 
A target be for every beak 
That hovers o'er the sluggish creek, 
And furnisli food for every one 
That makes her forests doubly dun. 
And make my camp where nightly sing 
The myriad hosts that whet the sting ; 



COLORADO JACK. 

'Mid mist and miasm, murk and' mjre 

Should brightly blaze my dim campfirc, 

By green lagoon and slimy pond. 

\\'here the Yellow Plague still waves her wand. 

Nemesis-like, she rears her throne 

O'er murky regions all lier own — 

Disease upon her poison breath, 

And in her glance the Yellow Death, 

With ring far around her humid clime, 

Heaps Taster than the scythe of Time 

E'er gleamed along the giiastly swath 

That swelter'd o'er the reeking earth. 

The alligator's scaly spoil. 

To seek and slay should be my toil : 

Though hard the task ond dull the sport, 

I'd take his hide for northern mart. 

Or where Alaska's mountain brows, 

Eternal wrapt in polar snows. 

Gleam high above her frozen seas. 

That never ripple to the breeze 

That sweeps along her icy shore. 

Where not a bud and not a flower 

Has sprung beneath the warming beam 

To smile in beauty, and redeem 

The desolation of her Z(jne. 

Y^ea, I would wander on alcne. 

Where St. Elia's miles of spire 

Have pierced her frozen heavens higher 

Than any other mountain's brow ; 

Has held aloft eternal snow, 

And rears her h^ud among the lights 

That dimlv se<r!i from far-off hights 



COLORADO JACK. t\} 

A j^reater jewel seems in air 

rium brigiitest star that glimmers there ; 

Yet sometimes round her brow is thrown 

A gauzy 'iiantle lightly fiown 

From far-off bogs that oozing lie 

Beneath a warmer sun and sky. 

.At other times a halo bright — 

The Horea's strange fantastic light — 

Shoots far around her peerless brow 

And cheerless as her cr3Stal snow, 

Still half redefms the ghastliness 

And gloom of her white wilderness, 

A brighter light more widely thrown 

Across her ghastly glit'ring zone 

Than e'er was seen hy mortal eyes 

I'o sjioot athwart our Southern skies. 

I'd hunt along her frozen vales. 

Unknown to song or hunter's tales, 

Whose snowy wilds have nev^er heard 

The music swell in song of bird, 

Nor happy peal of lover's song 

Has rolled voluptuous ther", along. 

But mantling price has eve- pressed 

Dame Nature's stark and julseless breast, 

And through its everlasting rime 

She feels not e'en the tri.mp of time ; 

Where northern fox an«T Polar bear 

Unknown to man has I'.iid his lair ; 

Where bear nor fox nor living thing ^ J^ 

Has heard the huntcr'^s rifle rin.g- : ^ 

When bick')ing shards were shooting fast 

I'd face the keenest hore<d Mast, 



80 COLORADO JACK. 

And bare a hunter's freeman's brow 

Against her eddying, whizzing snow ; 
And if I had to freeze and die 
I'd run the chance to petrify. 

And here old Jack first caught his breath ; 

He thought him of no other death 

That he would rather lisk or dare 

Than share the farmer's toilsome care. 

And there I lay all lank and weak, 

'Neath such a flighty zigzag streak 

Of wizard fancies, wildly laid 

Before me 'neath that live oak's shade. 

1 had been hot and cold by turns ; 

Hfjd felt the nameless qualms and burns; 

Had felt the fever in my veins. 

And flinched from thousand fancied pains 

Had felt the glacier's freezing breath 

And shivered o'er Jack's ic}^ death. 

And then he bu.'st into a laugh 

At the producer of the staff. 

It rather stung my granger pride. 

And, somewhat piqued. I thus replied: 

If all the world, like you, sir Jack, 

Should sail on such a wand'ring tack. 

Where would they land, I pra}' you tell, 

Or harbor luid chi.s side of well 

1 will not name that classic land 
That seems to stretch on every hand. 
You've drawn them fine and painted well 
The vagaries of your wizard spell ; 



COLOR A IH) JACK. 81 

Yet to reproMch I won't presume ; 

The task is more than I'll assume 

To reconstruct. Dame Nature's plan 

Diversity has shown in man ; 

And who is happiest, wisest, best — 

The careless rover of the West, 

Or nervous banker, merchant pale, 

Or jolly tar before the gale? 



My Old Mountain Home, 

Oh give me again my Old Mountain Home, 
'Mong her forests of chestnut in freedom to ronra. 
Where the pine ever sways in the soft mountain 

breeze 
And the hiurel and sprnce are I'airest of trees. 
How oft do I see thee ! Oh scenes of my youth. 
Where my life flowed :i!ong in the channels of tiuth ; 
My heart as untainted as tliy own mountain air. 
As stainless my soul, m}' conscience a^ clear. 
The friendships there formed but brighten with age, 
In the folds ot the heart is a bright written page ; 
Remembrance oft scans with a tear in her eye, 
Retracing the names that never can die. 
But where are the friends my boyhoo*! knew? 
The honest and brave, the noble ;nid true — 
Or the fair ones that felt a sister's regard. 
Whose virtue but asked for friendship's reward? 
In fancy I roam there and call them apart. 
But only find darker my void of heart — 
Artection loud calls but echo is mute. 
The hand is long withered and broken the lute. 
And naught but the sough of the dark waving pine 
Replies to the yearnings, these heart cries of mine ; 
And the hearts of the loved, the true and the brave, 
Have crumbled to dust in the moss-covered grave. 
But a few yet remain on the pathways of earth. 
Far scattered apart from the place of their birth, 



MV OLD MOUNTAIN HOME. 



§3 



With hearts that are withered, and brows which old 
Time [rime. 

Has marked with deep furrows and frosted with 
But oh ! give me again my iiome in the wilds, 
And my heart will yet thrill as young as a child's — 
Let me wander again her far shaded lawns, 
And my nerves will be tense as the light-bounding 

fawn's ; 
Let me stand once again, and drink in the roar 
On the cedar-l)ound cliffs where her waters bright 

pour : 
On her high beetling crags again let me roam, 
Where the ivy hangs high o'er the cataract's foam, 
When nature has thrown in her wild playful moods, 
through FAen like vales her swift mountain floods, 
Wliere the spruce-pine and cedar are brightest of 

green, 
And the ivy and laurel lend charms to the scene. 
Lst me hunt once again in her dark solitudes, 
And chase the wild deer in her far-stretching woods. 
Or wait for the bear in the deep rocky glen, 
Wliere the panther's eye gleams in his ivy bound den. 
Where the Cougar stalks forth, when the moon rides 

on high, 
With fear on his tongue and death in his eye. 
Where the lean wolf long howls from the caverns 

around. 
Then follows the prey with the faith of the hound, 
Where sharp through the gloaming comes the cata- 
mount's cry, 
Or seen the strange flash of his wild, lurid eye. 
My home is with these, for I love the wild note 



84 MY QLI> MOUNTAIN HOME. 

Of the long-botlomed wolf and the flying cayote, 
And the scream of the panther is music to me. 
When his eye tlashes bright in the dark cedar tree ; 
For here in these wik1s no Shylock has trod, 
And alone on the mountains, the temples of God, 
There's a spell on the heart, a charm on the soul 
And visions of beauty, like an unwinding scroll, 
rnfold their rare glories before the wrapt eye. 
And pictures immortal, are hung upon high ; 
Creations of Thought, in the bright Far Away, 
But the glow of their splendors no pen can portray. 
But the real is there. I have stood on the brow 
And gazed on the fair panorama below. 
Of woodland and dell and mountain and stream. 
Where the sheen of its ciystal reflected the beam. 
I've stood there, and looked when the silver of dawn 
Had lit up the jewels that garnished the lawn : 
I've looked there when Luna swung bright in the sky. 
And heaven's bright beacons like watchers on high. 
On the scenes that they lit like a dreamland of love. 
Oh ! Lookout ! I love thee ! Thou'rt young in thy age. 
And summers may smile or tempests may rage. 
Thou art wild in thy Leaut}^ and grand in thy charms. 
P'air in thy sunshine, sublime in thy storms. 
I've wandered away in life's strange career. 
And the magnet of travel has lured me far — 
The dim desert trail my footsteps have pressed. 
Afar o'er the wastes of the wind driven west. 
I've stood on grand mountains that tower'd on high. 
And gazed upon scenes that gladdened the eye ; 
But thy heights loom aloft, wherever I roam, [Home. 
And my heart ever pleads for my Old IMountain 



The 



[Written and handed to my son Edgar, muo had just 
returned with me from a fruitless morning liunt.] 

Oh, talk not to me oCtlie lumt and the cl.-ase, 
'Twill surely bring- thee to wane and disg^"a<;e. 
] know what it is to starve and to freeze ; 
I've walked myself down — half otfat the knees — 
And rambled the thickets and wildwoods around 
Till theseatofmy trowsers uei'e (bagging the ground : 
Yet flat is my pocket, my larder iinlllled 
^^ ith the hides i have sold or the game! have killed. 
I've watched at the dusk and again a,t the dawn 
Till I'd shot at a dove or a motherless fav^-n, 
And ambushed the path for t!\e weary old buck — 
\\'hose instinct and cunning evaded such luck. 
And vainly I waited my fkill but to prove 
^^'ith the bullet tiial hiy in the briglit iwiited groove, 
I've listened all ghuliy to the gobler's loud iiorn, 
As he bowed out the night and welcomed the morn, 
]^ut while creeping ihrough briar and tangled rat- 
tan. 
Been chagrii.'ed to watch him divining my plan, 
x\s all qui vice he stood more keenly to view — 
I'hen tauntingly gobbled, and prudently flew. 
When the swish of the storm was howling on high, 
And the glint of its shards gleamed cold in the sky, 
And a mantle of snow lay deep on the ground. 
I've followed the bison like a tireless hound, 



86 THE HUNTER. 

And my rifle has roared on the desolate plain 
Till long lay the lines of his dark shaggy slain ; 
But hard was the toil and light was the sport — 
And lighter the price tliey paid at the Fort; 
So many were damaged or counted as kip^— 
vSmall pay had the hunter for the toilsome trip. 
I've hunted the lean wolf on the far-stretching wastes. 
And studied his habits and pampered his tastes 
With strychnine and bullet, and all the known ways 
That are practiced by hunters in these latter days. 
But though they were numerous and hungry enough. 
They were not to be taken by any such stuff. 
In the low-lying vales of the dark Pilot Grove — 
In the dim long ago 'twas oft mine to rove. 
And the wilds of the Sulphurs have rang with the 

roar 
Of the rifle I prized so highly before 
The share of the granger had blasted the lawn, 
And brocket and buck and light-bounding fawn — 
Startled at strangers — had started in quest 
Of the chaparral brakes of the far-stretching West; 
Far have I followed in the wake of the sun, 
And though deadly the aim of my far-reaching gun, 
I'll tell you, my boy — 3'ou need never doubt — 
The track is too cold — 'twill never "pan out." 
Through sunshine and calm — the wind and the rain — 
O'er mountain and river and wood-beaten plain — | 
And tracked up the loafer to his wild mountain lair, 
And threaded along on the blue mountain's brow, 
Wherever a cougar or panther could go, 
And tried all the tricks and traps of the day 
In a too sanguine effort to make hunting pay, 



THE HUNTER. 



87 



Till I'm forced to conclude it won't never win- 
80 take my advice— don't never begin ; 
For the fact is too patent— 'tis plain to be seen— 
(And putting it mild, to say) I've been '^grecn." 
I've been smoked in camp, where the winds ever 

fan, 
Till my brow has been bronzed to the color of tan ; 
Have lived without water and eat without bread. 
And dined off the haunch where a loafer had fed ; 
Have camped with the Indians and hunted with 

scouts, 
And slept on my arms on wild desert routes, 
With the black weeping clouds for a canopy thrown, 
Till wet through and through, and chilled to the 

bone ; 
I've gazed in their depths when the lightning flashed 

red — 
Unheeded the thunders that rolled o'er my head— 
For I knew that the storm would soon roll away, 
And the blackness of night would melt into day. 
There's no milk in this cocoa, remember, my son, 
I've sawed and been sold quite cheaply for one. 
I'd as soon have a bee-course in Arkansas flats, 
Or a sand-bar claim in low Florida mats, 
Or a blowed out old mine in Cordillera's brows, 
Or a green-house located in Alaska's cold snows, 
As a hunting outfit or an old rusty gun. 
The man who's not tried it is the man who has won ; 
And keep this idea well back in your head : 
Your father's investment in powder and lead 
HadT as well been sunk in a bottomless stream 
Or paid to the sharks of a lottery scheme. 



The Fog. 

The morn broke through a humid sky ; 
The diiy star sctircel}^ seen on high 
Gle.'imed pale and dim above the plain 
That scarce reflects its ravs again ; 
Tl)e lagging shndes creep slowly west 
Before the orient's rising crest. 
And linger long before the light 
Can roll them onward with the night; 
Yon darkling wall of grayish fog 
Like mantle hangs o'er lake and bog ; 
'J'lie mists that float above the stream. 
Like lengthened puffs of eooling steam. 
Impervious to the struggling ray 
That lights the canon into day ; 
And though hard by the waters pour, 
You scarce can hear their sullen r'oar. 
And were it not for the trembling cliffs 
That hang aloft in massy rifts 
You would not know the waters played 
And leape 1 along o'er near cascade. 
The wolf withheld his lengthened note 
Unheard the cry of sly cayote ; 
The bison viewed with lazy gaze 
The creeping lines of heavy haze 
That hung like curtains o'er the west 
And clad the plains in an ebon vest ; 



THE FOG. '"^'J 

Tlie couL>ar, soiiglit uiDOMg tlr* rocks 

AVhere swept the raven's silent flocks, 

His kiir among the l)eetliiig steei)s 

Above wiiere fog- line sk)wly creeps ; 

Tke pkiin fox leaves .unchased tke liare, 

And slinks away to his hidden lair ; 

The jaguar feels tlie mighty spell. 

And startles not with rending 3'ell 

The antek:)pe, that e^'es afar, 

Suspiciously, this truce from war. 

But far along these f)g-bound walls - 

The tleec}' mist yet higher era vis, 

'J ill mounting to the canon's verge 

'Ihere rolls a seething,. Stygian surge. 

Tiiat like a lake of inky, stain 

liolls its black br.eakers..o'er the pkiin. 

I stood on bleak Mons Ensi's brow. 

And gazed along that high plateau — 

A lawn that lies above the plain. 

Like island shores above the main — 

A highway vvhere the desert blast 

Oft sweeps in fury fierce and i'ast, 

liut now as calm as mountain glen. 

And dark and murk as dismal fen ; 

P'ar up on high tlue surges roiled, 

And wrapt the mountain in their fold, 

And mounting higher 'neath the sun, 

Whose broad red disk now dim and dun., 

Like dying lamp 'neatli smoky screen, 

His fireless ray was hardly seen. 

Like beacon fires across the bay, 

Whose light fast wanes with dawnino- dav r, 



90 THK roG. 

Like swamping wreck he slowly swung, 

And dimly pale the ray he flung 

Through these vast mists, that mounting high, 

Now blots him from the murky sky. 

And night has flung her sable pall 

Of midnight darkness over all. 

And 1 had stood on mountain peaks 

Where lightnings played their zigzag freaks, 

Where fogs and clouds had borne the rain 

High o'er the thirsty arid plain, 

Or seen its lurid flasles glow 

In foggy depths that far below 

Was weeping o'er the drenched fields 

That trembled 'neath the thunder peals ; 

But ne'er on mountain's top or low lagoon 

Had midnight shadows fallen at noon, 

Or seen»ed so thick or densely dark, 

\Vithout one ray or glim'ring spark 

To pierce its canopy a.jd reveal 

The darkness one could almost feel ; 

Without one dawn of faintest light, 

Tlie sun seemed drowned in gulf of night. 

And nature wrapt in sablest gloom, 

As black and silent as the tomb. 

How welcome then had thunders pealed, 

Though lightning's flash had but revealed 

The landscape but a stone's cast round, 

And shown once more the solid ground ! 

Though but a moment b'azed its course, 

How welcome light ftom any source ! 

Fve felt the nightmare creeping o'er, 

When fever heki me in her power ; 



THE FOG. 91 

I've felt ray slow and sluggish breath, 
Like broken flaws or curling wreath 
Of creeping steam or wavering smoke, 
Before the storm cloud rudely broke, 
And cleared and cooled the midday air 
From fog and vapor floating tiiere. 
I've breathed the stifling, humid breath 
Of fearful caves deep in the earth, 
Where festering dead had thick l}*" lain. 
Of savage tribes that roamed the plain 
In by gone days of the buried past. 
But oblivion locks their mem'ries fast ; 
No writer's page or poet's song 
lias borne their tales of life along, 
Nor sung the scenes that curst or blest. 
Alas ! such tale were like the rest. 
For here a deepl}' written page 
Calls us back through many an age — 
Cuts deep this lesson on the heart, 
So often vainly conned apart — 
'J'he tale the ages still repeat — 
'Tis Nature's lesson all replete : 
'J'he waves of death are rolling fast, 
And sweeping man into the past. 
I've lain on the bayou's Cyprus bank, 
And felt the miasm thick and dank 
Creep 'neath the curtains of the night, 
And choke the breath, obscure the sight, 
But never dreamed or felt till now 
Such weight of darkness girt my brow. 
At last its waves began to lift — 
AVith here and there a shifting rift — 



1)2 THK FO(i. 

Like dungeon window to the sight, 
Thi'ougii which there struggles tem[)ered H ht. 
And tiu'ough liiese loop holes luing on liigh 
1 caught quick ghnipses of the sky ; 
It ne'er had looked so bright iy blue, 
^\"hile now and then a ray slijt through- 
Soon grown to dazzling sheets of light, 
'1 liat [)leused the heait and dazed the sight ; 
'Ihen that bright orb of heat and light 
.Swung high and clear o'er shades of night, 
'I'hat rollerl its mantling pall away 
And fled before the face of day. 
1 watched some cirri floating fast, 
Like phantcms of that gloomy past, 
lUiL fr 'in tile sun and tiie risinu' blast 
'i lie}' sped like arrows far and fast 
'J ill not a shred of its mant le ti(>w 
Ath^.'art that vatdt ot brilliant blue. 
1 followed far with wondering sight 
This sti-ange twin sister of the night. 
And watciicd its inky breakers roll. 
Like the blackened shreds of a charring scroll 
It smote the earth like a comet's tail. 
And wrapt tlie m(;U'ilain tuid the vale, 
And flung on high around the sun 
liillows (jI shade so d:u-kl\- dun 
They blotted out his far off ray, 
And cut in twain the length of day ; 
r)Ut natuie woke to a midday mom, 
Lnherrlded bv lime of dawn. 
Lor one broad blaze of dazzling light 
ILid swept from earth the shades of night. 



There's A Desolate Spot, 



'JMiere's a desolate spot on a wild mountain's higlits, 
Wlieie lanc-y oft stops in her wondeiful tiights, 
xVnd long does she pause and sadly she broods 
Jn the dark waving groves of these untrodden woods : 
For the wild grass now waves on the crumbling wall, 
And the .'oof-tree is torn from the desolate hnll, 
And the hearths that once welcomed the young and 

the gay 
Are moss-grawn and forgotten, and sunk in decay. 

For felon hand and mountain storm 

Have wrecked each vestige, trace and form, 

A nd cold oblivion's ruthless wave 

Has hid each relic love would save. 

And noxious weed and creeping vine, 

And mouniain moss and jessamine 

III rank profusion strew the ground 

As to disguise the hallowed mound, 

And hide from love's unsated eye 

A picture that can never die ; 

'Tis woven with m}^ memory, 

A fadeless form before my e3'e ; 

I cannot tear it from my breast: 

Like an oasis offering rest, 



94 there's a desolate spot. 

That greenly springs from dofcert's face 
Alone on boundless, cheerless waste. 
A cherished spot, so purely fair 
It stands a landmark time should spare; 
It rests upon my path of life, 
Unbroke by all my being's strife, 
Like sunshine on some stormy shore. 
But thou art mine — oh ! no more ! 
But though the owlet nightly cries. 
And mournfully the wolf replies 
From desolation's gloomy deil, 
Their hollow wailings seem to tell 
Of other days and happier time. 
When pleasui'e wooed her native clime. 
For yet tl; e peerless mountain rose 
Makes fragrant every breeze that blows. 
And groves of laurel, sj^nice and pine, 
And ivy's bloom and flowering vine 
Yet woo the eye on everjf hand 
Like patches of enchanted liiivd. 
And seem to shame our fo( lish pride 
That set exotics side by sice 
With these, the children of the soil, 
That sprung without our care or toil. 
But these are gone ; nor bud, nor flower. 
Cheers now that long-deserted bower ; 
For vandal hands have razed the pale 
That broke and turned the ruder gale, 
W^hile gentler hands have gone to dust, 
And nature would not keep the trust. 
But morns as fair and scenes as bright. 
And skies that shed as azure light. 



there's a ©esolate spot. 9;* 

And moons that have as softly shone 
O'er scenes that love had called her own. 
Have smiled on this, that's ever given 
Its bright reflections back to heaven ; 
And on this leveled, moss-grown wall. 
Once stood the roof-tree of a hall 
That looked across the mountain hight 
Like port of home or beacon light — 
A place of welcome, jieasure, rest, 
Inviting to the weary guest; 
And youth and age and talent came, 
AVith many a proud and stately dame, 
With all the throngs that welcome brings, 
"Would come to taste our mountain springs 
And breathe the pure untainted air 
That ever wafts its zephyrs there, 
luoaded with the fresh perfume 
I^rom laurel's blush and ivy's bloom. 
A Lane, the noblest of a race 
Whose humblest son would scorn to trace 
Throngh gentler blood or prouder name 
His title to a niche where Fame 
Has writ her errors on the page 
But to misguide each after age. 
My mother's sire, of gentle birth. 
Had "built his home and laid his hearth 
T'ar in tine wooded mountain's wild. 
And many an hour has he beguiled 
My eager ear with tales of truth. 
Most trusted mentor of my youth — 
A grand old man of noble brow — 
Methinks I see his features now, 



THERE S A DESOLATE SPOT: 

And g-^iy retainers gatliered Uiere 
With many a ciainty vaiiey fair. 
And mountain lass and country swaiu.. 
And young wassailers from the p^iiin, - 
To chase the piiantom forms of tight 
Through many a brief and heeting night . 
When music's swell would thrilling roll- 
Its sweet afflatus o'er the soul. 
And sparkling eyes wouki^ flashing tell 
The bosom's soft responsive, swell 
To eyes that flung the challenge back 
With blushing' mien and coyish tact. 
And glancing feet would quick repeat 
Each note upon the music sheet, 
Till chandeliers' unbroken light 
Had lit the latest hour of night. 
Who has not felt his bosom swell, 
Responsive to the mystic spell, 
When love and wine and music stole 
The coldness fromliis sober soul? 
Who has not felt the bounding thrill 
That comes and goes without che wiilf 
When gatherings war's clarion notes 
Had been rebuked by thousand votes, • 
And civil people stood aghast 
At gatherirg war cloud's threatened blast.-. 
In vain the call for volunteers. 
Nor gold, nor fame, could tame their fearpi 
Till skill had caught the thrilling fife — ■ 
Then eager was the rush for strife. 
Ever beaming, wdse and kind — 
Loved trainer of my youthful mind.. 



there's a desolate spot. -97 

^Vhen bristling batteries seemed a prize 

Tiiat ouere:! death to terror's eyes, 

Or grhining muskets threat'iiing bent 

O'er rifle .pit or battlement, 

•Ov bickering sabres' ringing clash 

Seemed a\vtul as the lightning's flash, 

The Hvely music's thriUing peal 

AVould transform human heaits to steel; 

Its strange, impassioned, dazing strain 

Would fling a madness o'er the brain, 

-And men would hunt the paths of death 

Obedient to its siren breath. 

A subtle influence, ever strong.. 

Will mold our souls to notes of song ; 

To weep, to laugh, to save, or slay — 

All will its mystic power obey. 

3've stood within that merry hall, 

"Midst the rapt mazes of the ball, 

And heard its volume roll along 

T.ike echoes of a seraph's song, 

But the sweetest notes that charmed us tliort 

Have died upon the mountain air. 

And the young hearts that beat again 

Responsive to that happy strain 

Are still or scattered far and wide 

Like wM'ecks upon tlie ocean tide 

That storms have driven on the shore, 

To reunite on earth no more. 

And on these wrecks the careless stare, 

Witii coldly careless distant air, 

And little deem what hearts can hide 

That still look back with loving pride 



t>8 there's a DESOLATTB ffPIKT. 

On scenes that glimi»er through the haze 

Of past out unforgotten days, 

That cheer us still where'er we roam — 

B^d some have never had a home. 



Madam Molue McGuire. 



I once knew a woman who knocked into pi 
The time-honored dogma, that figures won't lie, 
Her rules worked but one way and never would prove. 
While she made people blink at the bargains she drove. 
And if Greenleaf or Loomis, Davies or Ray, 
Had but flourished later an J taught in her day, 
She'd shown them all up for weak-minded fools. 
And taken the twist clean out of their schools- - 
And Bryant's and Stratton's would go to the rooks, 
If she could get but one chance to tangle their books. 
You might with a hackle rake heathendom through, 
And possibly might, in some hole find a few, 
As deep steeped in meanness, as low moral sot. 
Or treacherous quite as the woman I wot. 
She's one o' the kind that studies o' nights, 
To sell out her friends with all sorts of bites — 
And swindle her neighbors without much regard 
To the feelings of sinners or fear of the Lord. 
I've studied her case, and almost agreed 
That the tale of old Calvin, about the two-seed. 
Is orthodox doctrine and ought to be taught, » 
She's proven so clearly she's the devil's own sort. 
On her double-geared tongue that flippantly wags. 
The truth never starts and the lie never lags — ] 
Deep versed in black mailing and calumny's]lore. 
She can blast any name not tarnished before. 



100 MAUAM MOLLIE m'gUIKE. 

She makes up her lies by system and rule, 

And tells with the ''cheek" of a government mule. 

She'd "clean out" the heathen that busted Bill Nye, 

And teach the celestial how costly to try 

The tricks of old China with a Mollie McGuire — 

'Till he'd empty his sleeve and gladly retire. 

If she had half the chance, her steals would exceed 

The monstrous grabs of the greedy Boss Tweed — 

The stock gamblers of Wall Street would ruefully 

find, 
They never could count on the turn of her mind ; 
She'd always make "corners," run "bulls" or 

"bears," 
And never forget to pocket the shares. 
When her sands are run out she'll give us a rest, 
And "tumble to the racket" of Satan's behest; 
But if ever she reaches the home of the lost, 
She'll teach old Harry something to his cost, 
And kick up more rows than Satan can quell, 
And be an eye-sore to that solemn old swell. 



To My Wife. 



\Vlien the meshes of traitors lie thick o'er my path, 
And the fates are in fury and dealing in wrath. 
And sickness distempered seems fiiendless m}- way, 
And the clouds of misfortune admit not a ray, 
" 1 is then that 1 turn me in joy of heart. 
And clierish the love that shall never depart: 
"Tis the bright star tliat guides to the wanderer 

given — 
The purest and briglitest— the best gift of heaven. 
Oh. could I redeem thee from the thralls of the 

poor. 
And drive off the clouds tLat darklingly lower. 
And give thee the sphere thy virtues would grace. 
And bring back the smiles that lived on thy face. 
Golconda's bright jewels to me they'd outshine. 
For th}' love is more precious than the wealth of 

the mine. 
When the wolves of the church and the dogs of the 

law 
Have dissected my motives to pick out a flaw, 
And traitors have banded and friends have betrayed. 
And gossip re-echoed the lie siie had made, 
Thou knewest too well the lin > of mj' life, 



102 TO MY WIFE. 

And 1 still found amends in the love of ni}' wife. 
My arm shall yet win 'gainst a treacherous world, 
And broke and forgotten the darts it has hurled, 
And truth shall yet shine immortally bright 
And calumnies vanish like mists of the night. 
My arm shall yet win in the battle of life, 
And favor and honor shall smile on my wife, 
For the pledges I've made are truer than steel. 
And the worms shall yet writhe 'neath the grind of 

my heel, 
And felons shall know that a Perry's free brow 
Ne'er quailed before man- -won't cringe to them 

now ; 
But the love I bear thee is stronger than hate, 
And prouder, and nobler, and deathless as Fate. 



To My Infant Daughter, 



Oh, thou httle cooing, guileless dove — 

Precious darling, child of love — 

Had I a pen from seraph's wing 

I'd try th}^ graces now to sing ; 

But this dull point of uninspired steel 

Can ill portray how much the heart can feel, 

Nor paint the hues, nor draw the lines anght 

Of all that wins the heart or glads the sight. 

Oh, wh(j has not felt how useless, vain to tr}^ 

To reproduce the smile of one soft eye, 

Or beauty's thousand nameless lines to trace 

And make them glow upon a pictured face? 

No poet's pen nor limner paints the ray 

Tnat lives upon th}' features, May ; 

For heaven blended all that's best 

To set such daubers long to rest ; 

For the silken floss of thy eider curls 

Would dim the gloss of the brightest pearls. 

And the smiles that live along thy brow 

Like sunbeams tracing over snow, 

Fling gladness, love and mirth around — 

For in thy heart all these abound, 

For the light that lives in thy peerless eye 

Was brought from that beyond Uie shy, 

Where thou wert sent from the realms of bliss 

To see the treacherous mists f tJiis ; 



104 TO MT INFANT DAUGUTKR. 

But heaven lent thee mce sweet grace, 

A happier heart and brighter face, 

A mien more lovely, brow more fair 

Than child of mortals often wear. 

The belle that walks the ball room's [)ri !e, 

Or decked and dizened monarch's bride, 

With all that fashion brings to gra'*e 

Or guild the form, improve the face. 

Would pale before thy brighter eyes, 

That beam with light of other skies, 

For thy soft cheek and dimpled chin. 

And brow unclouded yet by sin, 

And azure eye and ruby lips, 

Would fashion's votaries all eclipse. 

But long before thou comest to know 

The hoUowness of much below. 

This hand ma}- have mingled with the dust. 

But keep this counsel long in trust; 

Such talisman man will serve the best. 

And bring thee peace and give thee rest, 

Shrinks not to raise aloft thine eye. 

Thoudt see a guiding scar on high — 

A deathless, brilliant beacon -light — 

To guide tliy wondering steps aright, 

But never raise the cowering e3'e 

Of superstition to the sky. 

For the God that hears thy prayer above 

Is a God of truth and rules in love. 

Before thy young, un practiced eye 

A thousand paths will tempting lie — 

A thousand flowery law.s invite. 

And glow before thy 'raptured sight ; 



TO MY INFANT DALGHTKK. lOo 

But lea.Ti this lesson well before 

Error holds thee in her power : 

AW is not good that looks divine ; 

Much gold has never seen tiie mine. 

And jewels that gleans and shine as bright 

To counterfeit the diamond's light 

Are worthless baubles fashion wears. 

As full of stains as wanton's tears, 

To daze the weak, the vain allure — 

To wreek the thoughtless, pain the pure. 

Look not on life with sori'ow's eyes. 

Because earth's not a paradise. 

The bad will ne'er outweigh the good, 

And spirits of thy ha|)py mood 

Will find along life's sunny shoi'es 

Luscious fruits and gaudy flowers. 

And gleams of light from the worlds of bliss 

To drive the shadows far from this. 

And if seraphs above guard sisters below. 

Light be the sorrows thy spirit shall know : 

Far from thy loo be trouble and pain — 

Bright be thy life till they call thee again. 



From Fort Griffin to Silver Lake, 

It has been snowing :it intervals for two or three 
(lays, and the heavy lowring clouds hang black and 
low over highland and valley. The biting nor- 
wester sweeps down like a hurricane from the high 
frozen table lands and pierces the form like daggers 
of ice. The few tall, bare cottonwoods and liack- 
berries that grow along the margin of the Clear 
Fork are heavy witii snow and frozen to thei»" cen- 
tres. Over there in a swag, standing with her 
moccasined feet and ankles deep in the snow, is a 
rimed and wrinklpd Tonkawa squaw, hacking with 
iier hatchet the withered branches of a fallen tree. 
The ice king has WM'ap[)ed her smoky tepa in his 
frozen meshes, and she must add fuel to her smoul- 
dering embers or freeze. 

Her pinched and withered features tell of hard- 
ship and age and sufTermg and want. But her 
piercing black eye, while it seems melancholy and 
sad, quails not before the storm : it has the fixed 
animal defiance of the hawk or she wolf, and would 
not quail before the King of Terrors. It has gazed 
on scenes of blood without a quiver, and on death 
without a tear of regret. Her attenuated, half- 
covered form possesses almost as much power of 
resistance as the wild animal. vShe knows nothing 



FROM FORT GKIEFIN TO SILVER LAKE. 107 

of comfort, and Nature has kindly adapted her dark 
untaught daugliter to live in the elements. Reeling 
down yonder slope comes her son, his flaring red 
blanket thrown loosely over his form and flapping in 
the wind as though he was not fanned enough. But 
his soul is fired and his blood is hot with the whisky 
that the gentlemanly agent has kindl}^ sold him at 
two dollars a quart. He knows nothing of the cut- 
ting snow-diift that the storm dashes in his face as 
if to cool his heated brain. He is crooning the 
harsh, unmusical notes of the old war songs of his 
fathers, in his own unknowii tongue, and thinking, 
if he thinks at all, of hunt, and chase, and war- 
path and scalp. 

We rake away the eight or ten inches of snow 
that covers the earth and build a fire to Ihaw and 
warm the ground for a pUice to sleep. When suf- 
ficiently dry we remove the fire and spread down 
our buffalo robes and blankets, and rolling several 
logs together we build a rousing fire near the foot. 
Then when we get thawed out ourselves, I and my 
two little boys, with a buffalo robe over our feet 
and another over our heads, the two lapped in the 
middle, lie as cozily and sleep as soundly as any 
merchant prince wrapped in his downy comforts 
'neath his roof of state. But during all that night 
the storm has howled and roared, and the snow has 
come in eddying whirls or driving drifts, as if the 
heavens were a solid snow-cloud. 

We rose next morning from our snow-covered 
bed (carefully laying back the top covering to pre- 
vent the snow from finding its way into our nest) 



108 FROM FORT GRIFFIN TO SILVKR LAKE. 

to spend another day and night like tlie past. My 
muies and horses were shiverino- and eatinj^: corn 
with unsatisfied appetite day and night, and one 
load of corn was last melting away. On the fol- 
lowing morning (the 1st day of January) it bad 
ceased snowing, and though it was colder than be- 
fore, I determined to strike out over the highlands 
for the plains. Here is the outside postoffice — the 
limit of civilization. The mail rider goes no fur- 
ther. I must write to my wife. To prevent her 
from being uneasy 1 write: '-We are comfortable — 
you cannot freeze a man to death in camp ;" and 
while I am penning the lines, but unknown to me. 
carpenters are busy with plane and saw on the cof- 
fin of one who lies stnrk and stiff — frozen to death 
within a few hundred yards of my camp ! A stran 
ger had driven his wagon down into the open un- 
sheltered valley of the Clear Fork, and too much 
benumbed with the cold to build a fire, he had 
fallen asleep in his wagon, and while dreaming of 
the cozy comforts of home his spirit had passed ofi' 
on the storm, and the lirae of winter and the froth 
of death lay white on his lips. Strangers' hands 
fashioned his coffin and strangers carved out his 
resting place in the frozen earth. That night we 
camped on the highlands sevejiteen miles west of 
Ft. Griffin, and found snow birds and quails frozen 
to death round our camp. Next day the sun shone 
out bright and clear, and we hove in sight of Ft. 
Phantom Hill. Before the war here was a military 
post, but nothing novv remains but the arched-top 
stone magazine, a few broken walls and the grey 



FIIOM FORT GRIFFIN TO SiLVEK LAKE. 109 

Stone chimneys. Silent all as the grave I No 
morning gun, or loud reveille of drum, or note of 
fite, or song of revelry breaks now its dead silence. 
The old magazine looks like an ancient mausoleum 
of buried greatness and the hoar chimneys like pet- 
rified giant sentinels guarding the hill where once 
waved the banner of liberty. But that proud ban- 
ner was once Iiumiliated, for when the tocsin of 
war sou Tided in the Kast the winds bore the clarion 
notes to the Far West, the grand old flag was 
hauled down, and after years of war, grimed with 
the smoke, of man}^ battles and riddled with bullets, 
was again mounted on the battlements of Griffin, to 
again triumphantly 

' ' wave 
O'er the land of the free 
And the home of tht brave." 

I stood on the grnss plat where the proud soldier 
had stood in dress parade, or marched to note of 
fife or roll of drum, and noted the rapid changes in 
the whirl of time. He comes to bathe no more in 
the limpid river that Pows so near the scene ; his 
feet treads no more the worn path to the cool 
spring : the}' have gone to dust on the fields of 
Spottsylvania, the Wilderness or Chickamauga. and 
their elements have united with others to form the 
beautiful daisy or fragrant wild rose tliat springs 
from the ground once watered with his blood. The 
bat builds in his fireless chimneys, and the wolf 
claims its antre where the soldier once lay and 
dreamed his dreams of home. And these insen- 



110 FROM FORT i^RIFFIN TO rtlLVKU LAKi:. 

tienl piles tell it all more el<xiuently than tongue of 
orator or pen of poet. 

Now we are on tlie McKenzie trail, slowly wind- 
ing up the Double Mountain Fork over the flats, 
tlirough the gorges and canons, on the self sanie 
track f(;llowed so often by the wily Comanche when 
fleeing west with liis bod}' of stolen hor:?es and 
weeping captives. But once on tliis trail followed 
the invincible McKenzie, who pushed them so vig- 
orously that he bagged them in their own fastnesses, 
and it is said disarmed them and took seventeen 
hundred head of horses from them at one time. 

And here and there are seen hast}' breastworks 
thrown up when the Indians -laade a stand, and 
tliei'e are seen lines of cartridge shells where they 
skirmished on the open ground. 

On and on W2 follow to the Head Waters. This 
is not the source of the Double Mountain Fork, but 
was so named under the false impression that it 
was. It is where the water first flows in that long, 
tortuous, unexplored canon in the west bluff of 
which the Yellow Houses are situated, and which 
undoubtedly was once the bed of a noble river. 
The ceaseless winds and blazing suns of summer 
have licked up its fountains centuries ago and in 
places have almost filled its channel. In other 
places it is broad and deep enough to carry the wa- 
ters of the Ohio or Missouri. These Head VVaters 
have been the theater of many conflicts. In the 
canon just below I picked up the skull of an Indian 
w(i.ii ... :l::iL li.Ui piobabiy lajien beside her lord. A 
half mile above are the naost perfectly arranged and 



FKOM FUKT GKIFFIN TO SILVER LAKE. Ill 

best chosen earth works I iiave ever seen. Tens of 
thousands of buffalo have slaked their thirst here, 
and man}' a hunter and Indian and Mexican have 
rode long with swollen tongues to reach its unfailing 
waters. 

Here we takf the "Trail to Mexico," level and 
smooth as the best McAdamized highwa}' that leads 
to any of the great commercial marts of the busy 
East. Nature has here graded and laid down for 
the buckskinned hunter as fine a drive as kid-gloved 
aristocrac}' ever enjoyed in finest park. The track 
v/as first marked double by the pony that the Indian 
rode making one and the end of his lodge-pole 
dragging on the ground the other. Then the Mexi- 
can came abng, and his pack horse followed one 
and his saddle horse the other. It was left to the 
tireless, unsatisfied, roving hunter to drive the first 
wagon— harbinger of approaching civilization —over 
its long hunt for sunset. 

It leads away over the illimitable lawn, on a 
stretch of fort}" miles, without water. But the 
swift-footed, far sighted antelope th.it grazes on 
these high divides seems as careless of that as if 
water was in no way essential to his being ; and he 
certainly is satisfied to do for long intervals without 
it. And though untauaht in the art of gunning or 
civil engineering, he can calculate with considera- 
ble accuracy the range of 3"our gun. 

The day was warm, and in order that our jaded 
teams might suffer less for water we drove over a 
considerable part of the route '-i the night. About 
10 o'clock in the morning the western wall of the 



112 FUOM FORT GllIFFIN TO SILVER LAKK. 

canon containing tlie -'Yellow Houses" burst upon 
our view. The bright morning su.i was directing 
his rays fairly upon it. and although we were miles 
away the atmosphere was so pure and transparent 
that every interlineation on its face became dis- 
tinctly visible. The round openings of the line of 
caverns, that have been cut by man 'or fashioned by 
nature,- in the I'ock that forms its brow, looked no 
larger than cannon's mouths; but as we approached 
they grew larger and larger till we looked down 
into the canon on the saline waters and glistening 
sands of Lake Spirito. We drove down the de- 
scent and across the canon's bed to the spruigs that 
tiow from 'the base of its western bluff. Here we 
found several huntc'-s who had come here to find 
better hunting of tiie fast-fading buffalo. But the 
doomed herds had left their bones on the slopes antl 
flats of tlie eastern plains, where they had melted 
like snow under the heavy guns of the hunters and 
but few had lived to wander so far. Like the In- 
dian they have vanished from earth as the restless 
white man has driven them towards the arid Occi- 
dent. Two weeks before a part}- of Mexicans had 
made a night descent on the hunters and had stolen 
their horses. Their situation was desperate, and 
they had walked to the Pecos river (175 miles) and 
back in the fruitless attempt to recover them. Now 
they were almost out of rations and their wagon 
tires were dropping off in the sun. But no blues 
or raehincholy here. Some of them were wearing a 
peculiar kind of octie or uiuccasin that attracted 
my .attention. The hind i* g of the buffalo is cut 



FROM rOKT (iUll'FIN TO SILVER LAKE. 113 

above and below the mid 'le joint, the liide is peeled 
off, slightly dressed iuid turned, placing the fur in- 
side. It is hauled on wet, and having the heel al- 
most ni proper form naturally, it at once assumes 
the shape of the foot ; the natural shrinkage o'f the 
rawhide closes up the toe, and the hunter is shod. 
^I}- readers ma}' smile, iiuL this is no slouch of a 
shoe where no others are to be had. But this kind 
of shoe has been the cause of much uneasiness and 
trouble among nervous persons and those given to 
looking out for India. i sign, as the impression made 
by it is wonderfully like the track of the true moc- 
casin, and the tracks of a few hunters round a lake 
or spring have made the country ••alive with In- 
dians." And as the hunters like to have the coun- 
try as much as possible to tliemselves, these tracks, 
spear-heads and "manufactured" arrows are some- 
times found. The ruse usually has the desired 
effect, and parties have been known to make first 
rate time getting out of the country. But those 
poor devils cooking dinner down yonder at the 
spring won't make good time getting out of the 
country. 

A three-cornered game this — between, hunter and 
Indian and Mexican. 

But these buffalo-shod, wolf-capped, long-haired, 
kind-hearted Dare-Devil Dicks won't come out 
second best. 

And come out they will ''all the same^'' as they 
say. For let the cards come as they will, their 
stolid equanimity is never disturbed, and it is "all 
the same" to them. 



114 FROM FORT GRIFFIN TO SILVKR LAKE. 

We have climbed the steep ascent to top of the 
bluff, and find on its brow the remains of an old 
stone fort. This has been pulled down b}' some 
succeeding occupant and a smaller one built inside 
the limits of the old, which in its turn has been 
thrown down b}^ the hunters and the stones piled 
into a pyramid. From the top of this the hunter 
can scan the countr}' for miles around and watch 
the moN'ements of the straggling herds of buffalo, 
the maneuvers of Indian parties, or the approach 
of friends. But the singular caves in the cap stone 
of the bluff, immediatel}' under the site of the old 
fort, chiefl}^ engage our attention, for these in con- 
nection with the fort make one of the most impreg- 
nable strongholds as against small arms 1 have ever 
seen. They are much in the shape of hollow cones, 
with the bases looking out over the deep valley be- 
low. And many strange, weird scenes have they 
looked upon. It these concave walls could talk, 
what startling stories they could tell, for tliey have 
been for ages alternately the shelter of nomadic 
tribes, the antres of the cougar and Mexican lion, 
the stronghold of the savage on the war patli, the 
retreat of Mexican banditti, and once the charnel- 
house of a number of Indian families : and now the 
luffalo hunter is taking his turn. Tradition says 
that several Indian families living here were inocu- 
lated by accident, or design of some remorseless 
fiend, with that terrible, loathsome scourge of civil- 
ization, the small-pox. They knew nothing of its 
terrible character, but supposed it was a visitation 
of the wrath of the Great Spirit. It yielded not to 



/ 

FROM FORT GUIFFIN TO SILVER LAKK. ll'> 

the incantations of the '-meditine man ;" every one 
was slrieiven. and every one fell before ihe insatia- 
ble destroyer. Snarling wolves bad dragged out the 
bones long since, and I found nothing to tell of 
them but a few beads in the dust of the floor. The 
tomb of one I found, on a high point, perhaps tlie 
first to fall, and tlie (^Jily one buried. Out of the 
festering soil had sprung a gnarled and stunted 
hackberry — the only tree growing on the highlands 
within a hundred miles. From i*s root in the cen- 
ter of the grave, grew a thick but many-spiraled 
grapevine, that clung to the tree as if it knew it was 
the only company on the desolate plains And 
when the wonderful mirage has vanished with the 
resplendent ra_>s of the setting sun. and the red 
light has faded into the gloaming— when the jaguar 
quits his lair and the lank wolf gives his long note 
to the wind— then perches the plain owl over the 
Indian's lone grave and gives voice to the saddest 
and most melancholy requiem that bird ever sang 
or man ever heard. I have stood on the Desert, 
alone under the canopy of night, far from camp, 
and listened to the long unearthl}^ wails as they 
floated to niy ear on the soft night-wind, and almost 
believed that they were the utterances of wandering 
wraiths, vainly calling for those whose feet had trod 
other paths of death. But the dust of these dead 
f nations, that sometimes floats on the desert gale 
and sometimes mingles with the snow, is as dead 
^nd spiritless as the volcanic ashes that lie deep 
over Herculaneum or the sands that sweep round 
the bases of the P3a*amids. ^'»ut T must leave the 



IIG FROM FORT GRIFFIN TO SILVER LAKE. 

scene. There is no ganfie here to tempt my sta^ 
and with ray heavy gun across my saddle bow 1 
mount m}' good brown mare and ride out alone to- 
ward the borders of New ^fexico to prospect the 
country. After riding seven miles along the dii 
and unfrequented track I come in sight of Sih- 
Lake, its crystal waters and salt-encrusted sr.nds 
glistening with a silver-like sheen in the sun. I ap- 
proached the shores of the beautiful, desolate lake, 
and found not far from its margin holes in the turf 
two or three feet deep, filled with pure living water. 
I>ut silence reigned around- -no living form was ^o 
be seen on the far-stretching highlands. Sometinjes 
the long-bottomed antelope, or lank cougar, or tire- 
less wolf will come to slake his thirst. Not often 
has the stillness of its long Sabbath been broken. 
Once a party of cavalry from far-off Griffin, tireless 
and keen as sleuth-hounds, had followed and over- 
taken here a party of murderous Comanches, and 
then the wild, defiant yell, the clatter of rushing 
cavalry and groan of dying broke its silence, and 
the smoke of carbine and rifle wafted murkily like a 
fog over its waters. But vanquished and victor 
were gone, and naught but the whitening skulls of 
the vanquished Indian remained to tell that man 
had warred upon its shores. I mounted to the sad- 
dle, and turned my back upon the arid, desolate 
West. 

THE END. 



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aHH 



